Maxwell's Demon
by IronicPuppies
Summary: This is the girl who angered a Steelix. You think you can cross her? She'll put you to shame. Just wait and she'll walk through that dark and curved space. You'll know when you see her. Remember her name.
1. Spatial Distortion

I could tell John was nervous. He always had an air of cocksure superiority about himself but that night he was quiet, still, consciously trying not to look around for fear of revealing his unease to me.

"You scared?" I teased him with raised eyebrows.

He snickered and shook his head. "I'm not scared, Liz."

"Afraid your head will explode?" I mimed an exploding head with my hands. "Not completely unreasonable you know."

He narrowed his eyes then looked away. "I know it's supposed to be safe."

"Supposed to?" I say. "You sound confident." I know he's never been to a spatial distortion before. Neither have the other two who are supposed to meet us here tonight. I've only been here once before. It's a region of space that has become warped and no longer obeys the rules of Euclidean geometry. Its most distinctive trait is the way it bends light so that it looks like you're staring into a giant lens, but the reason we're here is to bend.

I stand up and silently lean against the wall, purposefully jutting my left hip out as I face him. I know he likes it because when he thinks I'm staring off into space I catch his eyes flit downward and look me over. "Bending's fun. No reason to be so stiff about it." I wink at him but he doesn't even smile.

"Liz, chill, I'm fine with all of this. I was just thinking about my granddad. You know he used to have a drug problem."

I shrugged. "It's not a drug. Sure it temporarily messes with your brain chemistry but no one has ever died from one, not even the class five distortions. And this one has been basically cleared as completely safe."

"Yeah, I know Liz. I told you I'm fine."

I rolled my eyes and shoved him in the shoulder. "Off your balance today huh?"

Finally he grinned. "Don't even." He stood up and held out his hands. "Let's go." So we held up our hands and played. The game was a test of balance. You had to keep both feet planted and the only contact you could have with the other person was pushing on their palms with your own, and the first one to move a foot was the looser. He usually won but when I did I made sure to rub it in his face.

As soon as he got in position I smacked his palms and he stumbled backward.

"What the hell was that?" His eyes flared and he got into position again while I stuck my tongue out at him. "Let's go again," he said.

This time when I shot my hands out he grabbed them and then when I pulled them back he toppled onto me as we hit the wall of the entrance building.

"Come on now, that's just straight up cheating," I said. But we both just started laughing.

When the other two finally arrived we'd already devolved into a boxing match. Nothing too violent but I did knock the air out of him once.

I can't even remember the names of the other two who joined us that night. They weren't honor students so I didn't really give a damn. All I do remember is they were holding hands when they approached us.

"You guys ready?" I asked as they joined us, barely able to contain my excitement.

The boy nodded nervously and the girl asked if it was dangerous and if there were guards around.

"You'll be fine." I laughed a bit and then started working the door open with a crowbar. Before I opened it John insisted on helping. When we finally wedged it open we both stumbled back into the other two and laughed again. I saw an unspoken challenge in John's eyes; whoever got to the basement last was a coward, so we both walked through the door without even waiting for the other two.

We made our way down staircases and past hallways covered in graffiti of the others who had made illicit visits to this sacred underground lair in the past. Surprisingly one of the overhead lights still worked, so we flipped it on and there in front of us we could see it, the spatial distortion.

John stood in place, mouth open, smile slowly forming at the edges of his mouth. I walked a bit along its perimeter. The door on the opposite side of the room warped and rapidly receded as it approached the center of my field of vision. I took a step forward.

"Wait, are you going in already?" The other boy asked as he and the girl entered the room.

I looked back at them. "Yeah, it's fine." Then I broke out into a sprint toward the center. The world shrunk and warped away from me, and the door opposite me grew a little closer while John and the others shrunk precipitously when I looked back at them.

Finally the visual distortion evened out and I knew I'd reached the center. "Come on in!" I yelled, feeling a little out of breath. Or perhaps the bending had already taken effect.

First I saw John start to walk toward me, moving at an almost glacial pace. I couldn't help laughing hysterically. Yeah, the bending had definitely started taking effect. The other two, holding hands once again, made their way in as well, swiveling their heads to take in the visual spectacle the whole way in.

When they all reached me at the center, wide smiles on their faces, John looked to me and slowly nodded his head. "It's bigger on the inside."

The other two became fascinated with the iron meshed floor and wouldn't stop speculating as to how it was constructed inside of a spatial distortion. I will admit, it had an amazing geometry to it.

I felt a wave of bending coming on so I walked closer to John. I think he was starting to feel it too. He swayed back and forth, putting his hand up to light and scanning the warped background of the abandoned lab.

"Do you hear something?" he asked.

I grinned at him. "That's the bending. Sometimes it makes you hear things, sometimes you see things, and sometimes you just feel really really good." Then I felt a powerful breath well up from inside me and started giggling as I felt my body become almost half as light as it usually is. At first I couldn't tell if it was in my head or we were beginning to go weightless but then I saw the other two start jumping higher into the air.

"Antigrav's kicking in!" Then I found myself in John's arms, sitting on the floor, unsure of how I got there, and apparently still giggling. One of my hands ran up his chest, then through his short jet black hair. His eyes narrowed at me more than they usually look but I could only focus on running my fingers down his light earthy colored and subtly muscular arms. "Spin me!" I yelled at him.

"You can't hear that?" he asked again, ignoring my wandering hands.

I stood up slowly, watching the other two holding hands and frolicking across the noisy mesh floor in the presence of reduced gravity.

"John!" He looked at me and rubbed his forehead for a moment, so I grabbed the front of his shirt, pulled him close and kissed him. For a minute there he ignored the voices in his head and kissed me back, running his hands across my cheeks and down my back. I could feel strands of hair begin to stand on end. I'd heard some very preliminary asymmetry studies that class one distortions provided higher antigravity for light wispy appendages like strands of hair. It was exhilarating, I was lost in his embrace and yet my mind was opened, separated from my body to admire the physics of it all.

"Liz, are you sure this is okay?" He asked after pulling away from me.

"Oh just kiss me again already!"

"No, not that." He held a hand to his head. "I swear I can hear something. It's like it's right next to my head."

"What's it sound like?" I didn't really care, I just figured he'd shut up about it quicker that way.

"It's like an animal, a cat maybe? I can't place it. I think it's trying to talk to me."

I pushed him away and made a running jump into the air, staying afloat for almost three seconds I think. "Look at this place! It's amazing." I could feel my heart pounding, a series of periodic explosions getting louder by the second. I danced to that beat, twirling and running and jumping into the air until I finally stumbled on my own ankle and fluttered to the ground like a feather.

"John, come dance with me!" I raised my head and the world around me swirled for a moment before the oscillations decayed into a steady state and I saw the other two, far away standing pressed up against the southern wall of the lab, then I slowly turned and saw John at the eastern wall.

I couldn't stand so I crawled along the rattling mesh toward him. He later told me I was breathing heavily and moaning out loud as I did, but I can't remember making any sound then.

I already knew that distances inside this distortion were much longer but even so it felt like I crawled for hours before reaching John. He was sitting against the wall, eyes closed and head rhythmically rolling around as if to the sound of music.

"John!" I started laughing at him again, then straddled him and leaned in to whisper in his ear whatever lunatic thoughts I had at the time.

"No, Liz, get off. I can still hear it."

"You gonna kiss me again?"

He pushed me off and walked outside. I remember only collapsing to the ground and laughing until I ran out of breath.

I don't know how long I laid there, but it wasn't until my heartbeat faded from my hearing that I started to worry about scaring John off. The other two were talking with each other in a corner. They barely noticed me walk back up the stairs. Outside I couldn't see John in the dark at first but through the trees I saw his silhouette in the moonlight, standing by the shore.

"Hey John," I said, trying to keep as quiet as possible. "Went a little crazy in there, huh?"

He glanced at me for a moment, then looked out at the ocean again. "Yeah."

"Sorry about… you know, whatever." I felt my cheeks growing hot with embarrassment.

He shrugged. "I'm fine. Just felt really weird in there."

I took a seat on a fallen tree stump and motioned for him to join me. As he took a seat I ran my hand through the soft wet sand at our feet. "I know it's… uh…" How was I supposed to breach the subject? What do you say in that position? We'd been in this limbo where we both knew we liked each other but hadn't said or done anything about it yet. The night was one long blur.

"Elizabeth?" I heard the girl calling. They'd made their way up as well.

"Over here." I waved at them.

"Oh my god, that was the most amazing thing I've ever experienced!" the girl said, her face aglow and hands gesticulating wildly.

She and her boy started going on how I was so cool to have shown it to them and John mostly nodded and gestured at the conversation without saying much, but before I had a chance to talk with him alone again we heard a low rumbling from further beyond the old lab entrance.

That's when we first laid eyes on it. It was one of the monsters. I recognized the general shape of its giant segmented snakelike body but this one was covered in a shiny metallic coat that reflected the moonlight.

John asked what we all had on our minds. "Is that an Onix?"

But it wasn't an Onix, it had large triangular eyes and an almost demonic smile.

As the monster raised its head above the building it trained its eyes on us and let out a low pitched bellow before wildly plunging its head into the lab entrance's roof. I didn't see what happened next. The other two were already running away when John grabbed my hand and yanked me away. As we ran toward the gap in the gate we'd entered through, the ground shook and fearsome bellowing echoed through the air that night, and in the morning we heard the news: the building had been completely demolished and the spatial distortion was buried. We would never set foot down there again.

That was all more than two years ago, but they still call me Elizabeth Maxwell, the girl who angered Steelix.


	2. Taunt of a Calm Mind

I started dating a guy named Luigi when I first entered university, but after the first week or so I could already tell it wouldn't last. He had this pet Pikachu named Faraday that he'd bring to lecture and whisper to in this disgusting cutesy baby voice. I'd picked up on a little psychic ability myself and I could tell that little Pikachu hated Luigi's voice.

But hey, dating Luigi seemed to piss off John for some reason so I stuck around with him a little longer. Honestly I'm not sure whether I wanted to make John come after me again or just fuck with his head, but it was fun either way.

John unsurprisingly chose to major in biology with a specialization in metaphysical biology. I still can't quite believe they actually called it 'metaphysical.' Did someone just decide that since we can't figure out how the monsters' biology works we should just call it magic? That's just lazy science, even if it's only terminology.

Seemed like half our incoming class went into metaphysical biology, probably more. Though I will admit there was a high demand for people who could deal with the monsters.

When I first remember being told about the monsters as a child, 132 species had been discovered, some of them related to each other through a type of metamorphosis event that the scientifically illiterate in the media dubbed "evolution."

Since then a few more discoveries have been made, like the generation of Grimer from X-Ray scattering experiments at the class four spatial distortions, or the discovery of the firebird. I hear it's been named Moltres. They've even found entirely new species in other countries, including the metallic snake I saw that night two years before, but despite everyone else's excitement over the Mons I still couldn't bring myself to study them.

"Hi, are you Elizabeth Maxwell?" Professor Alcubierre entered the office while I was apparently daydreaming.

I tensed as I was alerted to his presence. "Yes." I stood with a smile and shook his hand. "Nice to meet you."

He smiled back. "Nice to meet you too."

I'd seen pictures of him in the admissions materials when I applied but he looked different in person. He was unshaven, with short dark brown hair, soft eyes and a sharp jawline, wearing jeans, running shoes and a t-shirt from the recent international conference for anomalous topology.

"So how has your first year been so far?" he asked.

I can only hope I pushed past my star struck admiration of him to come up with an intelligible answer. Either way, once we got past the small talk he showed me around his lab, introduced me to some of his students, even let me see the artificially generated spatial distortions they'd managed to create on campus. It was a dream come true. Alcubierre was one of the most respected physicists in the country and he was going to give me the opportunity to work for him.

After the tour I got a call from Luigi asking if I could look after Faraday for the weekend. Apparently he had something with his parents, I don't even know, so I brought the little Mon back to my place while I skimmed a few of Alcubierre's papers, only to get hopelessly lost in the math.

"Pika!" It was sitting on my desk, looking at me with perky ears and tail.

I shifted a bit in my seat on the couch and went back to reading.

"Pika pika." It wiggled its tail a bit.

"You want something?" Perhaps I was being paranoid but I think Faraday could sense I was annoyed because he only smiled and continued to 'pika' at me. He was such a troll. Of all the Mons Luigi could have chosen to keep as a pet he had to pick the one that sounded like a squeaky toy.

"Pika."

"You know it's not cute after the first hundred times."

He leapt off the table and bounded into my lap. I felt a small discharge of static electricity jolt my body into a further angered state. "You're so needy! What? You hungry again?"

He sniffed my papers and then leapt off the couch to cuddle against my backpack on the ground. Of course I could be a troll too...

The upside of spending a lot of time around Faraday was the chance to develop my own psychic abilities. One of the first peculiarities people discovered about the Mons was the possibility of developing a psychic connection with them. At first it was just a few enthusiasts rambling on about some hokey 'spiritual oneness' they felt with the Mons, but after time and study it was found that some people could actually mentally transfer information to and from the monsters they'd bonded with.

I guess you could say that was another reason people wanted to keep them as pets. The connection was difficult to establish so it soon became common for the wealthy to adopt the cutest and friendliest Mons as pets so that their owners could practice on forming the elusive psychic connection over a long period of time. That's why Luigi got Faraday at least.

I glared at Faraday for a minute, trying to imagine what a tiny electric mouse would be most afraid of. I concentrated on making my thoughts accessible to him and then yelled, "It's a Golem!"

He perked up real quick and looked around the room in panic before realizing that I'd only been messing with him. I went back to reading for a bit and Faraday fell asleep. At least I didn't see him move until the fire alarm.

It was one of those awful industrial building-wide alarms, part blaring horn and part high-pitched siren, accompanied by bright flashing lights. Faraday discharged like a Van de Graaff generator when it started.

Somehow I managed to pick Faraday up and carry him outside without getting myself shocked. Most of the other students exited toward the front of the building but it was shorter for me to take the back exit where I saw a handful of others sitting on the benches outside, including a familiar face.

"Hey John."

He looked up at me and smirked despite his obvious frustration with the alarm. "Twenty eight hours." He sauntered toward me. "Twenty eight hours I've been up and when I finally get a chance to sleep they pull another drill."

I smiled back at him. "Who knows, maybe if we're lucky another Mon's breached the border."

He chuckled. "Would not bet on that."

"Pika!"

I scratched Faraday's head. "Yeah I know, we all want to go back inside."

"Is that Luigi's?" John asked.

I nodded.

"I'm always curious how much you can actually understand of them. Tried on a Bulbasaur for a bit but didn't have much luck."

I caught a motion in my peripheral vision so I scanned the bushes. "You see something out there?" I stepped toward the forested area behind our building and then a Rhyhorn stumbled out from behind a large tree.

"Woah, be careful." John stepped forward between me and the Mon.

"John, chill, I'm not gonna do anything stupid." I knew as well as he did it wasn't likely to attack unless we threatened it. Course it could mow us over in a second but for the most part any Rhyhorn that made it into populated areas mostly bumbled around searching for scraps of food.

The others on the benches took notice as well and crept closer so John warned them not to crowd it too much. It waddled toward us and sniffed the air, then turned and headed down the sidewalk only to run into a lamppost.

Faraday jumped down and raced to the lamppost.

"Hey, get back here." He ignored me of course.

For a moment the two Mons exchanged glances before the Rhyhorn started bashing its horn repeatedly into the lamppost. They weren't known for harming humans very often, but they were notorious for property damage.

"It's okay, it won't attack us, it just wants the post out of its way." I've noticed John does that a lot. It's like he thinks he's got this natural born authority. He calmly began herding the gathered students back toward the building.

I'm not sure what possessed me to do it but I stepped closer to the Rhyhorn and kneeled on the sidewalk. Faraday sprinted back into my arms and I started to speak to the wild Mon.

"You don't have to move it out of your way."

It continued bashing the post.

"Liz, what the hell you doing? I can handle this."

I ignored John and spoke again to the Rhyhorn. "You can stop that if you want. It's not going to move on its own. You can go around."

It stopped ramming and turned to look at me. Its eyes looked confused, maybe curious. It sniffed at the air and then turned back to the post and continued to hammer away at the post, though now banging it from the side rather than head on.

"You don't have to keep doing that. You can go around."

"Liz." John was now standing behind me. "What you trying to prove?"

"Hey, Rhyhorn." I normally avoided calling them by their human given names, because honestly their human given names were usually pretty ridiculous, but that night I was on to something. "Rhyhorn, I'm telling you there is another way. You can go around. Go around the post."

It continued bashing at the post. By now the metal had bent and the light was leaning at a severe angle. The Rhyhorn kept ramming away, getting quicker until it finally lunged out to the side, slammed its rear end into the side of the post then continued walking down the sidewalk.

I stood up and eyed John. "Booyah, suck on that." The moment called for a celebratory dragon dance.

He rolled his eyes. "You do know they sometimes give up and go around obstacles, right?"

I stood really close to him. "Just admit it, I can talk to the Mons and you can't." I stuck out my tongue for good measure.

He shrugged, trying to play it cool. "Maybe. But I'd like to see what you'd do if it turned to attack."

"What, were you gonna save us all?"

"Do I have to remind you who among us wrestled a Machop and won?" He does tend to bring that up, usually omitting the part about the Machop being poisoned.

"All I'm hearing is talk, buddy."

We exchanged smug smirks and it was quiet enough for us to hear campus security near the end of the building find the Rhyhorn and call off the fire alarm.

"Pika pika!" Faraday squirmed in my arms.

"Yeah, we're going back in." I turned toward the door.

"Hey Liz." John checked his phone for a moment. "You going to the party tomorrow?"

Oh yeah, he still wanted me. "Maybe."

He followed me inside the building. "You should come. It'll be fun. Especially without Luigi."

"What do you mean without Luigi?" I knew exactly what he meant; Luigi hated loud crowded areas, especially when they're crowded with drunk people. This was a surprise to me since I first met him at a party.

He shrugged. "Just seems like you have more fun without him." He stopped before climbing the staircase to gaze lazily out the nearby window. "You know, I still don't understand why the fire alarm goes on when there's an intrusion. If there's a potentially dangerous Mon wandering campus why do you want people to be outside where they could meet it?"

"They don't want people inside if there's structural damage." A while back a Magmar started a fire that melted some support beams and collapsed part of a building's second floor.

"I know, but those cases are rare. Usually it's stuff like this Rhyhorn. It's not gonna take out a building."

I yawned. "Yeah. Whatever." Faraday squirmed again, indicating he wanted to be back in my room. "Well good night John."

He nodded. We parted ways. It wasn't until halfway up the stairs that I heard the sound of shattering glass. Out the translucent staircase windows I saw a large gray figure smashing through the glass walls of our neighboring dorm's student lounge.

"John!" I yelled as I hurried back down the stairs. Faraday leapt out of my arms but at that moment I didn't bother to chase him down.

I used to have this image in my head of what people would do in a disaster, you know, something like a drill headed monster demolishing a building. I always imagined people running and yelling and screaming, just general chaos all around, but they were eerily quiet. Sure there were some cursing in disbelief, some calling to their friends to run to safety, but most of them stood and watched. They stood there as a Rhydon trampled through desks and chairs.

"Liz!"

I turned around and saw John carrying Faraday.

"We've gotta get that thing away from the building," he said.

Cocky bastard, he's the only guy I know who can casually suggest taking on a Rhydon like that. I looked around. A couple days earlier tree trimmers came through our part of campus and left a few large branches lying in nearby bushes. I picked one up and started banging it on the nearest lamppost. "Hey! Over here!"

Rhydon turned its head toward me and John got the idea. He picked up another branch, ran to the next lamppost and started banging away. "Hey! I'm over here now! Come on!" He then looked at me with an urgent expression just as Faraday leapt out of his other arm. "Liz, draw it toward the field."

To the east of the dorms was a large field, essentially a university public park, with no buildings and plenty of trees for cover. I started running past John to the next lamppost but out of the corner of my eye I saw Faraday scaling a tree.

"Pika!" A white bolt flashed from Faraday to Rhydon's horn, which only succeeded in making it angry enough to swipe violently at the tree's branches.

"Faraday!" I yelled. "Leave it alone!" The frightened Pikachu sprinted back toward me and I continued to the next lamppost.

By the time John ran past me to the next furthest post the Rhydon was colossally angry, bellowing at us in this frightening low tone, crushing benches under its feet like dry leaves. Its pace quickened. I started to panic. "John!" I looked back and saw him motioning me further into the park.

We didn't have any more time to stop and lure it away, it was chasing us. Every time I looked back it seemed to anger at my gaze and bash its head into the nearest tree branch.

My hands were shaking. "John, what do we do now?"

He silently scanned the forest, hyperventilating as we maneuvered our way between the trees until he abruptly stopped and we turned back to see where the Rhydon was. I reminded myself that despite its size we could outrun it if necessary. That's when I realized there were men running toward us. I heard the whoosh of a tranquilizer gun and then Rhydon's last angry roar.

Once the men surrounded it my eyes and ears were flooded with awareness. The final groans of the drowsy Rhydon, wind blowing through the trees, the grass beneath my feet, curious stares of people out by the edge of the park, and every slight twitch of John's hand wrapped around mine.

One of the younger members of the team thanked us for our help but told us we should get back to the dorm. I started laughing like I did the night we visited the spatial distortion. I was on top of the world, I was invincible.

"Liz. Are you okay? Sure you didn't get hurt?" he asked when were finally alone in my room.

I nodded, unable to contain my smile. "I'm fine."

He grinned too. "That was insane. I can't believe we just did that."

I took a hold of his shirt, his eyes flashed, and we kissed. At first it was slow but the adrenaline and sweat and hot coursing blood took over and before we knew it he threw my shirt at the wall and we fell into my bed.


	3. Rain Dance

"So you're the girl that angered Steelix." His name was Vincent and he had the eyes of a predator.

I debated spitting out some witty line about not angering me but instead I replied with a simple, "that's me."

He playfully winked at me. "So what's the real story on that? I heard you broke into the spatial distortion alone."

As much as I'd love to have been the lone discoverer of the iron snake I told him the truth. "Actually I was there with three others, but the next day they were too scared to admit they'd broken in with me so I got all the credit." Alright, I guess John wasn't so much scared as he was suddenly obsessed with phantom cats, but these are small details.

He nodded his head with a mixture of admiration and lust. "Damn, you are something else. I do not know a single girl who could face a Rhydon without breaking out crying, let alone a Steelix."

I knew at least twenty girls content to watch me and John face that thing as if it were a gladiator match and they didn't shed a tear but hey, whatever.

"You know what people have been calling you?" he asked.

I casually shook my head. "Haven't heard." Of course I'd heard, but it sounds so good when other people say it.

He leaned in and gave me one of those you're-gonna-like-what-I'm-about-to-say eyebrow raise. "They're calling you the girl who taunted Rhydon."

Damn right they are.

I was almost back to feeling good when Anna returned carrying our drinks. "So Vince," she said, "now that you've met Liz, did she tell you that she's single?"

I took a drink.

Vincent shook his head. "I hadn't got around to asking."

Anna winked at me and continued. "Yeah, she just dumped her boyfriend. Real loser. He had a Pikachu and you know what they say about people with Pikachus."

"You don't have to lie about it," I told her. "He broke up with me."

"Yeah, but that story's no fun," she said.

"You think I give a shit what this goober thinks about it?" I said, pointing to Vincent. "Luigi broke up with me, whatever, I'm over it."

Vincent chuckled. "Hey now, no need for name calling."

I took another drink.

Anna stopped talking for a moment, trying to read my expression like she usually does. She'd been talking about setting me up with some guy ever since I told her I got dumped, despite my vehement protestations. "I thought you hated Luigi?" she said. "What's the big deal, I thought you were going to break up with him anyway?"

"Yeah, I was."

Anna looked flustered so she turned back to Vincent. "Anyway, so what else do you do?"

"Outside of school? I volunteer at the foster home." He answered Anna but he was still thinking of me. I was hot, a major badass, and just a little bit of a moody bitch, which was more than enough to set his mind wandering into a thousand little tangents, trying to figure out how he'd get me to his place tonight.

"Mostly I just help clean or move shit," he continued, "but I'm thinking of applying to become a mentor."

"Hey, I'm getting a call," I interrupted him. "I'll be outside for a bit." Of course I wasn't getting a call, I just wasn't in the mood to deal with him. Especially if he wanted to talk about the importance of the mentoring program.

I knew all about the mentoring program; I'm one of the genome babies. Back when birth rates fell below death rates and people were having a fit over the impending population crisis, someone in the government had the idea to start growing some lab babies. The technology had been around for a while to not only grow humans outside the womb, but to select for genetic traits, and even though the proposal was almost entirely unsuccessful, here on the island they managed to acquire the funding and legislative support to go ahead with it, and so here I am. I was designed in a lab, given longevity and above average intelligence, selected to have charisma, ambition, empathy, humility, and stubbornness, then told that they had high hopes I would one day join the political elite. So I decided to become a scientist instead.

Anyway, the mentoring program, that was the most recent change to the program. Since the beginning they'd hired child development professionals to guide our growth while we lived at the home, but considering most of us were supposed to be highly intelligent and ambitious and the fact that we outnumbered the staff, they occasionally had to fight a rebel uprising.

They introduced the mentoring program in an attempt to address this. They had people closer to our age sign up and each take a kid under their wing, with the hope that we'd find them to be more relatable authority figures and not act out so much, but these were usually successful university students looking to score community outreach points for future job opportunities. Not quite the types best suited for babysitting. At the end of the first day with my mentor, we agreed that I'd lie and say we met weekly in exchange for neither of us having to see each other again.

"Liz, what's going on with you?" She found me.

I don't know how she does it but she knows something is bothering me. "Luigi didn't even know about John."

She's keen enough to ask me how I'm feeling but can't figure out my meaning. "But you said that you told him about it."

"Yeah, but only after he broke up with me." Luigi told me that he met someone else and that he didn't think we worked well together. I told him that I'd cheated on him with John that time he asked me to look after Faraday. I told him how John came up to my room and climbed on top of me and that stupid little Pikachu just watched from the corner and all Luigi said was 'Why are you telling me this?' He wasn't even angry.

"So you mean he broke up with you without knowing you cheated on him?"

"Yes! For fuck sake yes."

Anna shook her head and her voice took on an angrier tone. "What the hell is wrong with you Liz? So you're not upset he broke up with you, but you are upset that he did without knowing you cheated on him? Are you that full of yourself?" She paused for a sanctimonious shake of her head. "You know what, I'm going inside."

And so she went back in and I didn't say a thing.

* * *

I woke up the next day to an overcast sky and the usual Rain Dance text alerts. I walked to Alcubierre's lab in a mild drizzle and amid low rumbles of distant thunder I caught myself a couple times looking to the sky in search of white flashes of light but none came.

The lab was almost empty except for the professor and Michael the lab tech.

"Hey, it's our resident celebrity," Michael said. "Nice to know we have somebody to defend us from the Mons."

I shrugged like it was no big deal. "I'm very intimidating."

The both laughed and Alcubierre stood up. "Well at least we know if science doesn't work out then you've got the fight clubs." He walked over to me and handed me a copy of some research notes. "We might actually have to evacuate soon, but at least you can read up on the compression designs."

"Really? You think it's a legit Rain Dance this time?" I asked.

Alcubierre didn't respond but Michael nodded toward the window. "See the swirl?"

He was right, the characteristic curling cloud formation had just begun. At least in the meantime I had reading material. "I guess we should start heading to the basement?"

They both sighed and nodded in agreement, and a few minutes later the alarms went off so we made our way underground. There was a dedicated underground office space for these situations, admittedly a small area but most people actually stayed home today. Alcubierre and Michael took seats at a couple workstations and delved into some debate about maglev technology, and I almost joined them but I saw John at the other end of the room with his new best friend so I walked over to say hi.

"Oh man, it's Liz!"

I waved back. "Hey Blaine."

"Dude, this is perfect, now you and John can go outside and kick some Gyarados ass."

John saw the paper I was holding. "What you reading?"

"Sevii project," I said.

Blaine's eyes widened in recognition. "So you're working on, like, those pocket dimensions?"

I nodded but John only gave me a blank stare so I explained the project to him. Alcubierre and a group of other professors had recently secured a large grant from the Sevii corporation, a shipping company operating primarily between here and Sinnoh, to develop a cargo compression system based on spatial distortion technology.

One of Alcubierre's main research thrusts was in studying the anti-gravity properties of distortions and he'd found that in some cases compactifying a large region of space into a smaller one could decrease the weight of the mass contained inside. The issues at present were primarily instabilities in the distortions as well as the energy requirements to maintain them. In addition to the reduced fuel costs that a compactified and lighter load would bring them, Sevii also had an interest in making their shipping vessels easier to accelerate in the open ocean on account of the Gyarados attacks.

As I finished explaining, John only grinned off into space. "What?" I said. "You look like an idiot right now."

He shook his head. "Nothing. Just thinking of the night we went to the old distortion."

Then Blaine nodded as if he'd been there with us. "Yeah, wish I could have been there to see it. Hey, you know what we should all do? We should see Carlos."

I've noticed he goes off on tangents like this. "Who is Carlos and what does he have to do with spatial distortions?"

"You haven't heard of Carlos?" Blaine leaned toward us in excitement. "He's the Alakazam at the southern foot of the volcano."

"They call him Carlos now?" I remember stories about him. It's nearly impossible to find Alakazam in the wild and the ones that have been spotted disappear so quickly but this one just sits around in the forest doing nothing. Sometimes you can find a few Kadabra or Abra nearby too, but he's been there for the longest time. People speculate he's meditating, but people usually come up with stupid explanations. People also say the Gyarados Rain Dance is a sign from God that if we don't shape up, the world is going to end.

Anyway, since the Alakazam's been there so long, the southern foot of the volcano is now a somewhat popular tourist attraction. They hang around, call out to… Carlos, I guess, they take pictures, but no one's been too close. People say there's a large force field around him, but you already know what I think of that.

Blaine nodded. "Don't know how they settled on Carlos, but I heard they got him to respond to the name a few times."

John tapped me on the shoulder and pointed behind me. "Check it out."

Hanging from the ceiling was a screen with a news report on the weather. The cloud curl was now clearly visible and shadowy snakelike figures plunged intermittently through the clouds. The Rain Dance had begun. The reporter cut to another clip of a Hyper Beam. The straight flash of light and charged particles tore through the atmosphere and lit up the clouds above like lightning. Moments later a Gyarados fell from the sky.

Most people feared the Rain Dance because of Hyper Beam. It can instantly kill a human being and most of the smaller Mons, but it's usually fired at such high altitudes that it's sufficiently dispersed if it ever hits the ground, and doesn't cause much damage. The real danger is falling Gyarados. After firing a Hyper Beam they fall unconscious and plummet to the ground, usually dying on impact and occasionally crushing some unlucky structure.

This time it landed in the middle of downtown. And it wasn't dead.

"Holy shit!" Blaine yelled. "It's still breathing. Look at that."

It's body lay in a pile of rubble, slowly inhaling and exhaling. The three of us exchanged shocked looks. The authorities would have to kill it before it woke up again. An injured Gyarados couldn't fly upon waking up, especially not after firing a Hyper Beam. It would thrash about and possibly fire another, injuring itself even further and most likely succumbing to a painful death anyway.

But then something else happened. The reporter had said that no civilians were in any of the structures at the time because they'd been evacuated earlier, but the station cut to footage of first responders arriving at the scene and finding a Pikachu cowering next to one of the unharmed buildings. It fired weak electric discharges at the rescuers out of fear and when the camera cut back to the reporter in the studio she started speculating whether the tiny electric mouse belonged to anyone.

A thought passed through my mind but I shoved it away. "No, that couldn't be."


	4. Affine Connection

Bulbasaur, Charmander, Squirtle, Pikachu, the four most popular pet Mons. Out of the thousands of Pikachu out there and all the irresponsible kids who begged their parents to get them one, or even the hordes of wild electric mice that could have been scurrying about the city looking for something to eat, the one that shocked its rescuers after a Gyarados nearly crushed it to death was Faraday.

After they told me in person that Luigi and his girlfriend died in the building collapse they ushered me to this calm old lady who was feeding Faraday through a steel cage barely 50 centimeters on a side.

She looked up to me with a look of simultaneous relief and consolation. "Are you a family member of the deceased?"

I didn't know what to say.

She clarified. "We need to find a family member to take him into custody." She glanced at Faraday. "Preferably someone who has experience owning one of the creatures. Otherwise he'll be taken to a shelter."

I took a breath, not sure what to make of the situation. I glanced over my shoulder and saw John still on the phone in front of the entrance to urgent care. A police officer walked past me to usher a couple reporters out of the visitor's lobby.

I made eye contact with Faraday and for a moment I was the father who left the kid and his mother.

"Are you here to claim him?" The old lady asked with a hopeful smile.

"Um…" Of course not. I'm not related and I don't know how to take care of it. He's not my problem. "Yeah, I'm Luigi's sister. I'll take him."

The old lady nodded. "Can I see some identification?"

"Uh yeah, sure…" I took my time fumbling for my ID. How hard could it be to con a little old lady? But by the time my card hit the counter I had nothing.

She looked at my card and then at Luigi's file. "Honey, I'm sorry but it doesn't look like you're his sister. We need a relative to take him."

I extended an arm at the cage and started shouting. "Look at the poor little bastard! He's shivering and crying, he's not gonna make it at a shelter. Come on, have a heart." I bit my lip. Shouldn't yell at my elders. "Look I'm sorry, I didn't mean to yell but he'd be better off with me. I looked after him a few times when I used to date his owner."

She didn't even flinch at my outburst. "You look like you could be the wife."

"Huh?"

She typed something into her terminal and then rotated the screen toward me. The form stated that custody of Faraday was being transferred to Elizabeth Maxwell, spouse of the previous owner. "So you're the wife of the deceased?"

"Do I inherit his stuff?"

She chuckled and started filling out the rest of the form. "They never check the forms once they're filed. I just need to put it in the system so I can release him to you. Is that okay?"

I filled out a few more forms and then Faraday was let out of the cage and into my arms. She let us go with nothing but a friendly wave.

"His Pikachu?" John asked. He finally hung up the phone.

I nodded. "Yeah, stupid bureaucracy, couldn't find any of Luigi's relatives so I've gotta take the little guy with me. Whatever."

John motioned toward the exit. "You ready to go? Done with all the official business?"

I nodded.

John's phone rang again; his girlfriend's ringtone.

* * *

When I crawled into bed that night, Faraday leapt in after me and curled up into a fuzzy yellow ball at my side. He fell asleep easily enough but kept shuddering all night long. In the quiet moments I could hear the crackling of his cheeks as they built up static and I felt his fur stand on edge and brush against my bare skin, which might have kept me awake if I hadn't already been unable to sleep.

I wasn't sad, I didn't miss Luigi, I almost felt satisfied that his girlfriend was there with him when the Gyarados fell from the sky. How twisted is that? What kind of person thinks like that? But there was this crushing feeling that wouldn't go away, like they left the sea serpent's segmented corpse on top of my comforter to rot away until my ribcage collapsed and forced the air out of my lungs. I laid there for hours, imagining dragons falling through my ceiling until my eyelids finally grew heavy enough to drown me in darkness and wash me onto to the shores of a dream.

"Liz, look, I want to talk about something." Luigi looked at me from the back of a Lapras in the last motions of a failed Rain Dance.

I found myself floating on an unconscious Fearow as the fog rolled in from the nearby shore. "I told you already, Faraday's fine."

"No, it's not about that Liz. Listen, when I was away I met someone. Someone from my past."

"You met someone?"

"Yes."

"And by 'met someone' you really mean 'met someone else you would rather sleep with' am I right?"

He sighed and shook his head. "Why does everything have to be so vulgar with you?"

"Vulgar?" The word came out of my mouth like an arrow. "That was me using a euphemism because rather than tell me you want to break up, you come up with this bullshit about meeting someone."

"Look, I'm sorry, I know this is painful but I'm not making it up. We don't work together and I met someone else and I want to be with her."

Electricity crackled at my cheeks. "Painful? You've got no idea what you're talking about. You think this is supposed to be heartbreaking for me? Do you know what I did while you were gone? I slept with John. We fought a Rhydon then he came up to my room and fucked me while Faraday watched."

"Why are you telling me this?" He was angry. He was furious. He couldn't talk to me anymore.

He picked me up and I wiggled my tail, sneezing with a high-pitched "Pika" and shocked him a little.

"Faraday, what's wrong buddy?" Luigi asked in that disgusting cutesy baby voice. "You got allergies or something?"

I shivered and leapt onto the table next to his girlfriend. She patted my head and commented on how cute it was when I sneezed.

They held hands and whispered things to each other in between muffled giggles but I knew there was something else worth my attention. I looked up at the nonexistent ceiling where dragons flew in circles firing thunderbolts and ice beams and flamethrowers while the rain pounded on my face.

It was coming and I could take it on. That Rhydon taught me more than just fear. I could stop the Gyarados. I could build up the voltage to blow it away.

Luigi stood up. He wouldn't go to the shelter, he had to run after me, make sure I was safe, so she stayed with him and screamed my name. "Faraday! Faraday! Come back Faraday, we need to get to shelter."

I was outside, atop a flagpole, drawing charge through the metal rod and into my body until the sky erupted in a flash of white and the Gyarados twitched and burned in its freefall. But electricity didn't deflect it. Electricity doesn't work like that.

I awoke with a shudder. So did Faraday. He looked up at me, eyes barely visible in the moonlight that fell through my bedroom window, and he started shivering so I pulled him close to me and stroked his head until he fell asleep again.

* * *

"So Liz, you know all about genetic engineering, right?" Blaine appeared next to me eating an ice cream cone.

"Where the hell did you get that?" I asked him.

He pointed to a small ice cream stand. "So apparently my Squirtle is one of those they genetically modified so when he evolves into Blastoise he'll have those metal cannons pointing out of his shell."

I nodded. "Cool." His Squirtle was currently napping under the shade of a nearby tree with Faraday.

Blaine took another lick of his cone. "Lot's of people here."

We'd finally taken the trip to see Carlos the meditating Alakazam. Thirty or so people were there with us, which I suppose was enough for some guy to open up an ice cream stand. Carlos had been there so long that people had gone through the trouble of marking out the border of his force field with large rocks so that visitors knew not to get to close.

Today Carlos sat cross-legged on a large flat rock, staring nearly motionless at the crowd, moving only his mouth to chew berries that he'd telekinetically plucked from a nearby tree. Two Abras played nearby. They sat closer to the crowd, poking at each other with sticks and rocks. One of the Abras occasionally teleported to the branch of a tree above them and then back down, sending the crowd into a flurry of excited comments and picture taking every time it happened.

"How long has he been sitting there?" I said.

Blaine shrugged. "A few months I think? He teleports away sometimes but not for long."

John had taken it upon himself to lecture the crowd since there was no official tour guide on site. "…So even though scientists have been able to link Alakazam's psychic ability, and in fact all of the Mon's psychic abilities, to abnormalities in spacetime just like the spatial distortions, they don't really know much more than that."

A little girl raised her hand. "Do you know a lot about the distortions?"

John smiled. "I know a little bit, but you see that pretty girl over there?" He pointed at me and the crowd turned. "She is actually researching the spatial distortions so she actually knows way more than me. But I'll try my best to answer any questions you have without looking too stupid."

The crowd chuckled and John flashed his eyes at me like he does when he knows he's being clever.

"Hey Blaine." I turned back toward him. "Walk across the line."

He looked at the rocks marking the edge of the force field, then to his ice cream, then back at me. "I don't want to. You do it."

I shoved him toward the line and he stumbled for a moment before tilting backward and tripping back into me.

He fixed his sagging ice cream before it fell off the cone entirely. "I told you there's a force field."

So I picked up a couple small rocks. I threw the first one on an arc aimed at Carlos but it too bounced back when it crossed the line. I lightly tossed the next one, only aiming a few meters past the line and it went through. "It's not a force field."

Blaine looked confused. "How'd you do that?"

"It's not a force field," I repeated. "He just repels anything he doesn't want to cross."

Blaine shrugged. "I need more sprinkles."

He went back to the ice cream stand, but I stayed still. I could feel something familiar. It had been a few weeks since Luigi died and over that time whenever I talked to Faraday or whenever he wanted something from me I got these random intuitive urges. I could suddenly tell that he was hungry, or that he was scared, or that he wanted me to change the channel back to reruns of the cartoon show Punchy Piplups.

It's hard to explain. It's like watching a commercial where a kid gets this awesome grilled cheese sandwich from his mom with mushrooms and peppers and chicken and suddenly you have this overwhelming craving for a grilled cheese sandwich with mushrooms and peppers and chicken, except instead of watching a commercial Faraday comes up to me and makes his little "Pika" noise and I get this understanding of what he wants.

Anyway that was what I felt in that moment. Carlos was too far away for me to know where he was staring but I couldn't shake the feeling that he was looking directly at me, and rather than some abstract desire for a grilled cheese sandwich, there was one word that summarized the vibe that Carlos was sending me: _puzzle._

"What are you trying to say?" I asked him in a voice too quiet to be heard by anyone else around me. "Is the force field a puzzle? Do you want me to solve it? Is that why you're sitting here? Do you want someone to solve your puzzle?"

But that was it. I didn't get any more signals. The rest of the day he just sat there eating berries that flew to him from the trees.

I came back the next weekend without Faraday or John or Blaine. During the day a somewhat larger crowd had gathered, presumably because the Mons had also increased their numbers. A circle of four Abras telekinetically passed around unusually shaped stones while another one rolled around in a patch of grass and a Kadabra studied the bark of the tree from which Carlos had been eating berries the last time I came.

Carlos wasn't doing much of anything so I found a nice flat rock of my own and sat there. I would sit there until everyone else left. Of course I overestimated my patience. Rocks are hard. After not even an hour my ass was sore and I had to get up and walk around, but I sat again. And rose again…

It took damn near an eternity but eventually only some photographer and I remained. He complimented my hair and asked if I would pose for a couple artistic shots in the sunset. I obliged and before he packed up and left he gave me a warning about staying out past sunset and to make sure to follow the path back.

And then we were alone, Carlos and I. The Abras had teleported to places unknown and the Kadabra had long sauntered away into the forest toward what looked like a cave. Carlos' eyes were open, staring at me, blinking just when I thought he'd become a motionless statue.

As light was quickly fading I took a step past the rock-marked border. And then another, but no force field propelled me backward. I figured he let me through and I could traverse the thirty odd meters from the border to his rock but he stopped me again before I could get that far.

He reached his arm behind him and flung something at me, no telekinesis, just a nice underhand pitch. I knelt down and picked up… a key. A word came to me: _home. _He was telling me to leave. I knew I wouldn't be getting any closer to him that night so I pocketed the key and went home, but not before shouting in a loud obnoxious voice, "I'm not done with you yet, Carlos."


	5. Legendary

I stood at a long abandoned janitorial closet near the first floor women's locker room, ham-handedly jabbing the Alakazam key at the keyhole, when Anna saw me from across the hall.

So much had happened since Carlos gave me that key; the sentient distortion generators in Alcubierre's lab that made everyone fear the robots were taking over, the changes to biomedical intellectual property law that the Senate seemed eager to vote on, allegations of unlawful human experimentation aimed at the Aura company, a new wave of Golem attacks in Pewter city, and of course the impending flyover; but there I was, still trying to brute force my way to finding the door that the key would open.

"Have a good workout?" I asked Anna, to deflect attention away from my latest unsuccessful key attempt.

"Oh my god, Liz, I've gotta tell you. I met a guy…"

I let out a loud groan.

Her mouth hung open and eyes narrowed. "Fucking hell, can I even get a chance to finish my sentence?"

"Okay, go on." I started twirling the Alakazam key in a vertical circle using the lanyard I'd attached it to.

Her giddy schoolgirl smile returned in a snap. "I met a guy… from the Viridian Fight Club."

I gave her a nod of approval. "Alright I apologize, that sentence did end better than I expected."

We started walking toward John's place and she continued. "His name is Sam and I met him the other night because he was in town with a few other members from Viridan to check out the Cinnabar club. He said they're having a tournament in Viridian over the midterm break and that he could get me and any friends free tickets if I wanted to come, so I asked my boss if I could get time off and you should be getting finished with classes soon so we should go see him! At the tournament!"

I nodded. "That sounds cool." I'd seen a few informal fights before but never one of the Fight Club tournaments. "Who does he fight with?"

"Oh my god, the cutest Growlithe I've ever seen. He also has a golden retriever so he showed be these pictures of his Growlithe and retriever both dressed up in these adorable costumes."

Growlithe. A fire breathing dog. Sounded promising. "Yeah, set it up then."

"Did you want to bring any of your school friends?" she asked.

"You mean like John and Blaine?" I shrugged. "Sure, we can ask them when we get to the party. I know you've met John, but have you met Blaine yet?"

She shook her head. "Not yet."

When we finally arrived I could already smell smoke before they even opened the door.

"Liz is here!" Blaine yelled as we walked in. He smiled a bit too easily, falling back onto the couch and gesturing emphatically for Anna and I to sit on his lap.

I took a seat next to him. "This is my friend Anna."

He grinned and nodded with lazy eyes. "Nice to meet you Anna. You are very pretty."

Anna raised her eyebrows at me.

"Yeah, Blaine is high," I said.

"Hey Liz," he poked at my shoulder. "You know what I saw?"

At the moment Anna was walking toward John, and I could tell John had been smoking the same thing Blaine had.

"Liz, Liz."

"What's up Blaine?"

"You ever think about fire?" he said. "It's so much more than just a chemical reaction. How can oxygen molecules make something so profoundly artistic?"

I leaned forward and started twirling the Alakazam key in a circle again. "Yeah? That what you saw Blaine?"

He looked puzzled for a moment, as if something had slipped his memory. "Ah! No, I saw John's cat."

"John doesn't have a cat."

"No, I mean the one he saw in his vision."

Oh, that one. The one he claimed to have heard the night we went to the spatial distortion, and then claimed to have seen in a delirious dream a year later when we visited Orre. That was not a fun trip.

"It was a floating cat," he said. "With a long tail. I call it Mew. I think it wanted me to eat more cheesy puffs. Do we have anymore?"

I looked toward the kitchen for food. "Yeah, you want a beer too?"

"Yup."

I knew most of the others at the party, but they weren't particularly close friends. Most of them just wanted to hear me recount how (according to some of the more outlandish rumors) I killed a Rhydon. A few others heard that I paralyzed Rhydon by tearing down power lines with my bare hands, and then knocked the Mon unconscious by swinging a tree branch at its head. I can only hope they knew that was creative hyperbole because it pains me to believe anyone is stupid enough to believe that story.

John's girlfriend was there too. Sophie. Now she was an eyeful.

"Hey Liz, good to see you again. Love what you're wearing. It's so… retro, I guess?"

I had to keep myself from laughing. "Hey Sophie, thanks! I like, totally love what you're wearing too. You look so hot."

"Thanks." She smiled and flicked her hair over her shoulder. "So Zapdos, huh? This should be exciting."

I nodded. "I know, right? I guess you could say… sparks will fly."

She laughed. "Ah Liz, you're so funny."

"I know, I know." I grabbed a couple beers and smiled once more. "Well you are a darling but I have to get my friend a drink so I'll talk to ya later, kay?"

She smiled and waved before rejoining John.

"What a bitch." I sat down again next to Blaine, jolting him from whatever philosophical awakening he was experiencing at the moment.

He clasped his hands together when he saw the beer. "Oh, yum. So who's a bitch?" He tried unscrewing the top with no luck.

"It's not a screw off cap," I told him as I reached for the bottle opener attached to the Alakazam key. "So you wanna go to the roof for the flyover?" I asked him.

Blaine pondered the question for a long time. "Nope."

I shrugged and opened my own beer.

Zapdos was the reason we'd all gathered in John's room that evening. The folks in Goldenrod figured out that Zapdos reacted strongly to a few radio frequencies in the VHF and UHF range, so Cinnabar decided to conduct its own experiments with the frequencies to see if they could control Zapdos' movements and behavior. We were all waiting for the probe flyby that night; a remote controlled drone would emit a loud radio signal while it flew directly over the university.

A text alert popped onto my phone that moment reminding us not to stand on high roofs while the flyby was in progress.

"Hey John!" I yelled across the room. "You still going up to the roof?"

Sophie narrowed her eyes at me as she clung to John's side.

"What? While the electric bird of death flies over?" John yelled back.

I stood up. "Sure, no problem. I know it'll be scary up there for little girls."

He let go of Sophie and started barreling toward me. "Fuck that, lets go."

"John!" Sophie started after us. "What did I just say?"

But we darted out of the apartment and climbed the stairs to the roof where two boys had set up lawn chairs and watched the sky as they shared a twelve pack.

"Hey!" the bigger one yelled, pointing at me. "Check out who it is dude. The girl who taunted Rhydon."

The smaller one looked up and smiled. "Hey what's up?"

I waved at them. "Couldn't miss the flyover."

A little slow to join the conversation, John stumbled back toward me. "Why the hell does she get all the credit? I was there taunting the Rhydon right next to her."

"She gets the credit 'cause she doesn't whine like a little bitch," the bigger guy said.

I smiled at John. "It's true, nobody likes a little bitch."

The smaller guy sat up. "Yeah, and she fought a Steelix. Where were you for that?"

John's eyes widened. "I was right next to her for that too!"

And the three of us laughed for the longest time.

The sun had begun to set so in the few minutes we waited up there I watched the clouds dance in a multicolored sky. John fidgeted next to me and occasionally laughed at something unsaid.

"How you feeling?" I asked him.

"Excellent. We should do this every day."

I laughed. "So much for worrying about your granddad and his drug problem?"

His face sobered up instantly. "Come on, that is a totally different situation and you know it."

"Relax, relax, I'm just yankin' your chain. How's the sour faced mistress of blood?" I started twirling the Alakazam key in a circle.

"Blood?" He narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Oh, you mean the hair. Yeah Sophie's great, but she regrets changing the color. Said her parents don't like it. Want her to go back to blonde."

I couldn't help but laugh.

The big guy in the lawn chair stood up. "Oh shit, check it out."

I looked up just in time to see the drone pass directly overhead, and then out to the horizon line where a dark yellow shape came into view. The sky momentarily lit up in a white flash as a bolt of lightning traveled from the yellow shape to the top of the nearest building.

I don't know if I imagined it but I thought I could feel a buildup of static electricity tingling across the surface of my body. I imagined for a moment that this is what Faraday felt like that day the Gyarados fell from the sky. I wanted to reach my arm up into the sky and fire a blinding bolt at that bird and watch it fall to the ground.

As my eyes recovered from the flash, its body came into view. Its orange beak slowly scanned the sky like an artillery cannon searching for its next target. With every flap of its wings, tiny bluish white discharges crackled in the evening sky and then Zapdos opened its beak and let out a battle cry, and I saw a white flash.

* * *

"Mew."

I floated on water. Soft surface waves rocked me back and forth and my limbs swayed in the current like those of a Tentacruel. My hair fanned out and then returned to cling to my face as the waves tickled at my ears.

I opened my eyes and found no water. I orbited the planet, thirty thousand kilometers up or so, naked and shivering and emitting tiny bluish white discharges of electricity from my fingertips.

The light from the sun grew and enveloped me until my entire field of vision had been engulfed in white. I felt my toes touch down on a cold hard surface and I collapsed in a miserable shaking pile.

"Mew."

My head shot up and hair cascaded down my face but I could not see what had made the sound. John's cat?

I lay back down on the floor and invisible hands caressed my face. A soft rhythmic drum line and lone violin rocked me to sleep and just as my eyes closed I heard it again.

"Mew."

And I saw it. The little pink cat, hovering in the air, staring at me with giant round blue eyes, playing with its rabbit-like feet and abnormally long tail. It rushed toward me.

"Mew."

I tried to speak but felt my throat fill with sand. The cat curled its tail and brought the tip to my forehead and the world turned black.

* * *

"Liz!"

The violin turned to a siren, the drumline to the sound of bewildered footsteps, and the blue eyed cat into John.

"She's alright!" he yelled as I opened my eyes.

They surrounded me; the medics and John and Blaine and Anna and even the two boys with the lawn chairs.

"Oh snap! Check that shit out!" the bigger one said.

"Daaaaamn!" he and his friend both cried out in unison and danced for a moment of celebration.

"She took one from a Zapdos!" the smaller one said.

With my last bit of strength I winked at them and shot them a thumbs up before the medics carried me away and I slipped into darkness.


	6. Fight Club

"Rule number three. Someone says 'stop,' the fight is over."

The announcer is some ten year old boy wearing a red cap. His voice is echoing from an old black speaker system on the sideline.

"Rule number four. Only two Mons to a fight."

The crowd grows quiet as the opponents face off. Sam stands still as a statue at one end with Growlithe at his side and a girl with long bright blue hair sways slowly side to side as her Eevee bares its teeth.

"Rule number five. No attacking humans."

Faraday and Blaine's Squirtle watch intently with the rest of us. There are no seats, standing room only since the bleachers had been removed, but the old baseball field has enough space for us all and the nighttime lighting is more than powerful enough to illuminate tonight's combatants.

"And rule number six. The fight begins now!"

"Go!" Sam yells. A massive fireball erupts from Growlithe's mouth and the crowd gasps in amazement. The momentarily bewildered Eevee freezes and Growlithe emerges from the fireball to tackle it to the ground.

Growlithe goes in for a bite but Eevee jumps out of the way and runs toward the slowly dispersing smoke.

"Double Team while its still there!" the girl with blue hair says.

Just as the crowd is recovering from the shock of the fireball they are amazed at Eevee's speed. It darts in a frenzied zigzag pattern leaving illusory copies behind in the smoke. Its psychic ability is strong enough that not only Growlithe but the crowd can see the afterimages.

"Stay still!" Sam says.

Growlithe stops chasing the images and tries to follow Eevee's motions with his eyes.

"Save your fire," Sam says.

"Now!" the girl says.

Eevee darts and smashes Growlithe's head with its tail and disappears again into the Double Team. Growlithe shakes it off and watches intently, but he is taken from behind, stumbles to the ground, and has lost sight of Eevee.

"Left!" Sam says.

Growlithe turns left and bites down on Eevee's tail as it attacks. His head violently shakes back and forth and the Eevee is dragged and bashed through the dirt.

"Dig!" the girl says.

Eevee smashes its front paws to the ground and the crowd feels a subtle tremor at their feet, but Eevee is too tired from Double Team to move the dry earth quick enough and Growlithe bites down before Eevee can disappear underground. He throws Eevee into the air and tackles it when it has hit the ground.

"Run!" the girl says.

Eevee gets to its feet and makes an attempt to escape but stumbles on its own feet.

"Now!" Sam says.

Growlithe lets loose a stream of fire. It is not nearly as spectacular as the fireball from the beginning but it hits Eevee straight on.

"Stop!" the girl finally says. "Stop the fight!"

Growlithe's fire goes out and he steps away. Eevee hobbles to its feet and inches toward the girl with blue hair as it softly cries in pain. Its fur is charred but it hasn't sustained any major injuries.

"Come back, boy," Sam says with a smile, and Growlithe trots back toward him, with his tongue hanging out and a spring in his step.

"The fight goes to Sam and Growlithe," the announcer boy says, and the crowd erupts into cheers.

I felt my own heart beat with excitement. It was quick but such a rush. Surprised me even more to see that fluffy stuffed animal attack Growlithe with such intensity. Anna continued screaming and jumping into the air like a teenage girl at a concert.

Once Sam congratulated his firey Mon, he and Growlithe traversed the battlefield and Sam shook hands with the blue eyed girl. He stopped to talk. Of course I couldn't make out any words over the crowd but he even kneeled down and gently petted the frightened Eevee before walking back toward us.

The announcer boy handed the mic to a girl closer to our age wearing a short skirt and tight fitting top, and she read off some anecdotes of previous fights that Sam had won before going on to introduce the next fight for that night.

"Oh my god Sam, that was amazing," Anna grabbed him for a hug and Sam's face lit up in confusion for a moment, like he'd never been hugged by a girl.

Blaine agreed, "Yeah dude, that was awesome."

I congratulated him too but then noticed John had disappeared again so I left Sam with his adoring fans and walked off toward the edge of the field. John was on the phone again but I caught sight of the blue haired girl and her Eevee nearby. She was talking with an older man.

"Hi." I waved at her as I approached.

"Hey." She smiled back. It appeared the man was tending to Eevee's injuries.

"It was a good fight."

She nodded in thanks. "Not as long as I hoped, though. She doesn't have much endurance yet."

I made a gentle motion towards Eevee, curious if I could pet her.

"Yeah go ahead," the blue haired girl said.

I touched her head and the charred fur still felt warm. She looked up and started licking at my fingers.

"Still, it was exciting." I said. "Actually, this is the first tournament I've been to."

The blue haired girl's eyes lit up. "Really? Oh you gotta stay for the rest of the fights. I'm relatively new to them and Sam's one of the favorites so this one wasn't nearly as intense as others will be." She lightly brushed Eevee's ears. "Sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Sarah." She held out her hand.

"I'm Liz."

We talked for a bit about the fights. I told her I only had a Pikachu and doubted very much he'd ever be the battling type. She told me how she'd been inspired to fight by her father. He was a guardian.

Now the guardians were the real deal. Back when the Mons first emerged from the spatial distortions they attacked human civilization and while the bigger cities had enough conventional weaponry to fight them off, some of the smaller ones like Pallet and Lavender were left relatively defenseless.

That's when the guardians emerged. While exceedingly rare, they were the first to develop psychic connections with Mons. And not any Mons, they went for the strongest ones: Arbok, Nidoking, Onix, Kingler, Rhydon, Scyther, and even a Gyarados. Sarah's father was the legendary Norman Clarke of Pallet who fought alongside a Machamp.

These were our superheroes. The guardians had entire comic book series and lines of action figures designed after them. Of course then we eventually got onto the topic of the Cinnabar flyover.

"Oh my god, you're Elizabeth Maxwell? You're the girl who survived Zapdos."

"Yeah, that's me." It wasn't as flattering as my other epithets but I owned it anyway. "Guess we're both celebrities?"

At that point the next fight was ready to start. Anna and Blaine were still talking with Sam, and John was still on the phone, so Sarah and I watched it together. This time was rather low key. An Oddish faced off against a Bulbasaur, and while they did a fine job of littering the field with leaves and twigs, much of the fight was spent fending off the other's foliage.

By the end John finally put down his phone, so I exchanged online contact info with Sarah, said farewell to her, and I joined John and Faraday by the chain link fence at the edge of the field.

"Hey vaginaface."

Both John and Faraday looked up.

"No Faraday, I'm talking to this one." I pointed at John.

John rolled his eyes. "Yeah, Sophie says hi to you too. She would totally love to hang out with you sometime. Like totally."

I smirked. In the time between the flyover and our arrival at Viridian, John and Sophie had broken up and got back together. "Still don't know why you're back with her."

He shrugged. "She's hot and she's fun to be with. Are you gonna fault me for that?" He started checking updates on his phone and I was reminded of his other obsession.

"Dude, look at you. You've fallen to the level of browsing internet forums for this thing?"

Faraday jumped into my lap and curled into a ball.

"I know Liz," John calmly responded, "but you saw it yourself."

I shook my head. "I was knocked unconscious right after pothead Blaine told me his story of seeing a floating pink cat. You're surprised I had a dream about it? I didn't see anything, John. And please tell me your internet friends have come up a better name than 'Mew.'"

"Actually the name seems to have caught on."

Faraday rustled out of his comfy position and started pawing at me for attention.

"Faraday, stop grabbing my boobs."

Finally Anna and Blaine brought Sam back to join us. Despite being competent enough to plan a trip to Viridian, we still hadn't figured out a place to sleep so Sam suggested we all stay at his place.

And of course the boys finally met for the first time.

Anna pulled Sam forward. "So Sam, this is my friend John."

Sam nodded and held out his hand. "Sam Oak. Nice to meet you."

John reached out and they shook. "John Fuji. Nice to meet you too."

* * *

Sam had a pretty great place. His house lay on the outskirts of Viridian and his family owned a small fenced off pasture. It used to house a small gathering of farm animals but now served as a place for his Growlithe and Golden Retriever to play, and on occasion it held domesticated Mons from visitors to the Viridian Fight Club.

Sam talked about some of the best Viridian fighters and what we could expect to see in the next few days of the tournament. He also told us about the Cinnabar Formal Dinner coming up in a month or so. He'd be on the island again and of course Anna made us all agree to go. Blaine even expressed an interest in getting his Squirtle involved in the fights, so Sam shared his experiences in joining the Viridian club.

No adults were home so we shared beers and conversation late into the night, and were occasionally interrupted by the Gastly that 'haunted' his home. Sam said it had been there so long that it learned not to get too close to humans; its gaseous form could temporarily paralyze a person if they were exposed to it for an extended period.

Mostly it wandered the rooms of the house or the fields outside, drifting in the breeze as a formless cloud of black smoke. It hadn't developed a face yet. We'd all heard stories about the Gastly that spent time with human companions and started to develop eyes and mouths. Not real ones of course, they were purely meant to communicate facial gestures.

Eventually the others drifted off to sleep until it was just me and John, sitting on the porch watching the sky begin to light up with the morning sun, while Gastly hovered a couple meters off, slowly tracing out infinity signs in the air.

"You know I still think about that night," John suddenly said to break the silence.

"What night?"

He raised his eyebrows at me and grinned. "The night the Rhydon attacked."

I smirked and looked back at Gastly, unsure what to say.

"Sometimes when it's quiet that night just pops back into my head," he said.

"And you tell me this when you're already back with Sophie. What am I supposed to do with it?"

He sighed. "I don't know. I just wanted to say it. Can't we just have it be said and that be that?"

I don't know if Gastly grew uncomfortable or if it finally realized the sun was coming up, but it broke its hypnotic pattern and drifted toward the orange grove east of the house and didn't turn back.


	7. Anomalous Quadrupole Moment

We arrived late to the Cinnabar Fight Club Formal Dinner. Not fashionably late, just late. The boys took way too long to get ready. So did Anna.

My dress matched the color of my hair: both deeper than the night sky on a… oh fuck it, I don't understand how people can describe themselves with metaphors. I'm a tall Asian girl; just picture me with long black hair, a tight black dress, blood red lips, and the most uncomfortable heels you can imagine.

I figured I'd amuse myself playing 'my eyes are up here' with the fight club boys, but never before had I been trapped in so many 'my friendship with my Mon is such a special bond' conversations. I had to leave early.

I left my shoes with Anna and walked barefoot to the foot of the volcano in the middle of the night.

"Carlos!"

The tourists were long gone for the day and that smug asshole Alakazam sat there on his rock, eyes wide open and I swear a smirk on his face.

I pulled out the key on its lanyard and swung it dramatically back and forth like a pendulum. "I've tried it on nearly every door in the university, plenty in town, even some in Pallet and Viridian. Just tell me where it goes."

He didn't move.

"I swear to god Carlos, I'm gonna melt it down into a slug and shoot it into your face."

Of course I imagined it, but I heard him laugh in my head.

"Nothing? You just gonna sit there?"

Finally he beamed a word into my head. _Home._ But that was nothing new.

"I'm not going home until you tell me something new."

And then the wind started to swirl. I could see sparks of electricity jump in the air, and the region between me and Carlos bent and twist just like a spatial distortion. But it was more than that. I heard the most terrifying music. Screams and drum beats and melodic whistles melding and crackling into its own fearsome sonic distortion.

A figure appeared and the distortion vanished. She stood up and gasped in wild recognition. "It's me!"

She was right. The girl standing before me… was me. "You… are…"

She nodded furiously and approached. "Yes, I'm you from the future. I came here to tell you that the key is for your home. That's what Carlos meant. He isn't telling you to go home. He's telling you that's what the key opens."

Of course. How had I not considered that before?

She stepped closer, this time unabashedly lowering her eyes to the neckline of my dress and squeezing her tongue between her teeth.

"My eyes are up here," I said.

Then for a moment I noticed Luigi standing next to Carlos, but Future-Liz stepped closer to gaze into my eyes and placed a hand on the side of my neck. "You look so damn sexy in that." And she kissed me.

* * *

"Pika!"

"Damn it Faraday!" I'd awoken with a start and pinched his tail, subjecting myself to another unwelcome static shock.

It was a dream. Just a dream. But she was right. No, I was right.

I grabbed the Alakazam key, walked out my front door, and shut it behind me. The key had to be for my door. I put it into the knob and turned but nothing moved. Was it not in all the way? No, it went in fine, but the key still didn't move. It wasn't meant for my door. I had just locked myself out.

I stopped to take a deep breath and the sleep logic slowly evaporated. It was a dream. I did not travel back in time to tell myself what the key was for. Luigi wasn't really there with Carlos. I did not kiss myself. The key did not open my door. Of course I had considered that interpretation of Carlos' message! The very first door I tried was my own. I'd already attended the Cinnabar Formal Dinner a couple weeks ago, and a few days after that Anna told me she was moving to Viridian City. Just like that she was gone. After years of telling me that she'd one day join a fight club she finally uprooted her life and left me behind.

I slammed my fist into my door. "Motherfucker!"

That's when it became clear to me that the boys in the study lounge across the hall were staring. The first year metaphysical biology students would begin research proposal presentations in the morning and I'd just stumbled upon a group still finalizing their slides. I stumbled upon them in my underwear, standing outside my locked door, holding a key that could not open it.

"Yes! I'm locked out! Go do your goddamn homework."

As I walked away toward John's room I heard one of them mumble something about 'the Zapdos girl.'

When John finally responded to my angry knocking and opened the door, he looked at me through squinted eyes in response to the bright hallway lights. "You know I'm flattered Liz, but I'm still dating Sophie."

I pushed past him and entered his closet.

"What, you need some clothes?" he asked.

I found the small plastic case I'd hidden among the old files he stuffed in the back and removed my spare key.

"You had that there the whole time?" he asked, still squinting and scratching his head.

I walked back out without a word.

He stood at the door in confusion. "You're welcome, I guess."

* * *

In the morning I took Faraday into lab. He'd been coming with me for a while now since we found out he played well with the sentient distortion generators.

Those generators were built using an unusual irradiated magnetic alloy found at spatial distortion sites. Academics had been informally calling it magnemite. Anyway, Alcubierre had discovered that running electric current over pieces of magnemite could bend space just like what was found at the spatial distortions. He'd used these generators for a while but only recently did they start moving on their own.

Pieces of magnemite would come together in the night after the machinery powered down and one night Michael discovered a hovering clump of metal inspecting one of the lab computers.

When the press found out about it, headlines proudly proclaimed 'Cinnabar Island Researcher Creates Artificial Distortion Monster.' And what did they name this artificially created monster? They called it Magnemite. I suppose I didn't really expect them to take my advice and name it BOSSFET. I mean I haven't even worked out the acronym yet, but can nobody come up with a better name? I am seriously bummed out.

The door opened and Michael walked through, followed by a small group of wide-eyed prefrosh. "Ladies and gentlemen, it's the girl who tamed Magnemite!" He gave me a giant goofy smile.

I shrugged. "Really it was all Faraday's doing." Faraday was currently in the other room, touching his nose to the Magnemite's outer appendages with small electric shocks. "And hey, in this lab we call it the BOSSFET," I added with a smirk.

Michael waved me off and turned to his group of five prefrosh. "So this is Elizabeth Maxwell. She's a first year student but she's already well into research here at the lab. Now obviously most people don't start as early as her but since you guys are interested in distortion physics, she is probably the best person to talk to considering she's only a year older than most of you."

I smiled and waved at them, secretly praying that they would go away.

That's when Alcubierre entered. "Michael, the conference call is starting."

Michael scratched his head. "Already?"

"Yeah, they decided to start early." Alcubierre turned to me. "Hey Liz, do you think you could give these guys a tour of the lab? Maybe answer any questions they have about undergrad life?"

It had to be me? Well I couldn't say no to Alcubierre, so I was left alone in the lab with these five prefrosh.

"So, uh… you guys are touring labs now?"

They all nodded their heads and this one perky girl with a long ponytail spoke up. "We have another half hour to visit this lab then we have other activities."

I put on the most earnest smile I could muster. "So… this is the artificial spatial distortion lab. As I'm sure you've heard this is also the lab where Magnemite were first formed. You might have heard that they've been created elsewhere now, but you see that one in the adjacent room playing with a Pikachu?" I pointed to the transparent glass door. "That is the first Magnemite ever discovered. And seriously, don't ask me how we got to keep it; there were government agents all around here when news first broke."

They were amused by that.

"So, you guys have questions for me? About the lab? About university in general?"

Of course they did. Little bastdards. I drudged through the usual admissions questions, including reasons to choose Cinnabar over other universities.

"Well to put it bluntly, Cinnabar is the best in Kanto if you want to be a scientist." It was generally accepted wisdom that if you wanted to study science or engineering, you went west. I suppose Saffron University was decent, but if you wanted to be the very best, you went to Pewter, Viridian, or Cinnabar, and Cinnabar was number one. God, that made me sound like such a tool.

Eventually their curiosity overcame them and they asked to play with Faraday and BOSSFET the Magnemite, and to my delight the one boy who hadn't asked any questions so far came up to me.

"Uh, so Liz, I heard it mentioned that the latest theory behind the connection between the Mons and the spatial distortions is something called the Marsh? You know anything about it?"

"Ah yes, the Marsh. That's the name of the theorized classical tensor field generated by the Mons. You know much about tensor calculus or general relativity?"

His eyes widened a bit and he shook his head.

"Don't worry." I winked at him. "I don't really either. But from what I do understand, a tensor is basically just a matrix. The idea is that spacetime can be described by a tensor called the metric according to relativity, and studies of psychic Mons have shown that they can generate distortion waves that look just like gravitational waves. I'm still learning about it myself, but I could show you some good references on the subject."

He nodded. "Yeah, that would be cool."

I started searching my phone for links to a good summary paper.

"Why is it called the Marsh?" he asked.

"I think a guy in Fuschia came up with the term. He was out looking for Psyduck in a marsh when the metaphor struck him. Similar to the way that going through a marsh changes how quickly you can walk on the ground, he thought that psychic Mons generate a field that changes how quickly objects travel through space."

The boy nodded. "Sounds pretty awesome."

And for just a little bit, I thought it might be nice to be a professor. It felt good having someone look up to you like that.

* * *

I saw that boy once more in the evening. That night in the dining hall they coincidentally served Cinnabar's famous marsh pudding in honor of the visiting prefrosh. Though it wasn't named after the Mon's tensor field, rather it was named because the pudding was served with tiny marshmallows mixed in.

"Remember, only one bowl per person," one of the admissions staff nearly shouted in my face as we got in line.

When I finally found seating with John, Sophie, and Blaine I took a glance back at the line. "The hell is her problem? They always have leftovers, why can't we go back for seconds?"

Blaine shrugged with a spoonful in his mouth.

Sophie did most of the talking that night. Her hair was back to blonde and it was just absolutely the most important thing in the world that we know how much it shocked her friends and her professors that she'd changed her hair color again.

As soon as I finished my bowl I used it as an opportunity to leave that table and get in line again. The admissions lady noticed me of course. "Hi, didn't you already go through the line?"

I shook my head and smiled. "Nope, I haven't got a bowl yet."

She gave me a suspicious look, but let me by, so when I finally got to the front I grabbed two bowls, raised them in the air so she could see me, and then ran outside.

Of course once I walked outside I had no idea what to do with two full bowls of marsh pudding so I decided to visit Carlos.

He looked the same as always, sitting silently on his rock. Though this time he surprised me since he'd placed a large boulder next to him, a few meters on his left. I assumed that he intended for me to sit there so I approached without being repelled by his force field.

"Can you read my mind?" I asked him.

He responded by telekinetically removing one of the bowls from my hands, so I sat down and we both ate pudding.

"I had a dream about you last night," I said.

He reached for another spoonful.

I had no idea what thoughts drifted through the mind of that Alakazam, but I'd fallen into a pattern with him. Every few weeks I'd come visit, usually with food, and sometimes I'd sit silently and sometimes I'd yell about the key and sometimes I'd just talk at him until I had nothing else to talk about, but everything I did felt comfortable. He probably had a massive enough intellect to understand everything I said, but he wasn't the talkative type.

"It was strange. I kissed myself. And Luigi was there."

Carlos sniffed at the pudding before taking another spoonful.

"Sometimes Luigi just pops into my head and for just a moment I think 'I wonder what he's doing with the girl he left me for' before I remember that they're both dead."

I'd only eaten a few bites of pudding, while Carlos had finished his bowl. He licked his spoon clean and then smiled and said, "Yum."

Unsure how to react, I started laughing. That was the first time I heard him speak. "It's good, huh?"

Then my bowl hovered out of my hands into his and he started eating that too.

"Anna's in Viridian now. I told her not to get hung up on a guy that doesn't want her, but she is in love with that Sam. And of course you can't talk to John these days without Sophie clinging to his side. Even Blaine's been sparse; he spends a lot of time with the Cinnabar Fight Club."

While Carlos ate out of the second bowl, the empty one hovered in front of him, slowly rotating about its axis. I was about to make some comment about him showing off when a sharp pain shot through my spine and my eyes were forced shut.

Violent colors flashed on the inside of my eyelids until a cohesive image formed in my mind of a Zapdos passing overhead and landing on top of a dark industrial building.

My eyes opened again and my muscles ached as if I'd been lifting weights all day.

"What the hell was that? Can you warn me before you plant painful visions in my mind? What's it supposed to mean?"

Carlos didn't respond. He finished his last spoonful of pudding and smiled at me. "Yum."

And he kept both of the spoons.

* * *

.

.

.

**AN:** I realize not everyone has studied electronics so the BOSSFET joke have have eluded some. For those curious, BOSSFET is a play on words of MOSFET which is an acronym for a type of transistor used for amplifying electronic signals. (Metal–Oxide–Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor)

Look at me. I'm hilarious. Explaining my own terrible joke...


	8. Electrochemical Leitmotif

"Hey! I'm over here!"

Nidorino sniffed the air then caught sight of me.

"Yeah, fuck you. Come and get me."

My nails dug into the soaked bark of the broken branch in my hands. The rain had completely soaked my clothes and leeched the heat from my skin. I shivered as Nidorino charged.

I threw the branch into the brush and jumped down the slope and managed to sneak past Nidorino by running along the coast to where John sat in the sand. Faraday cowered at John's side.

"You okay?"

John grasped his leg and grimaced. "I can't run but I think I can walk."

I spotted a white fin emerge from the violent sea for a moment before disappearing again. "Okay John, we have got to get the fuck out of here. I just ran past one of the Nidorino, and I know Nidoking is…"

A deafening roar cut me off. Nidoking found us and started bashing trees out of the way to get to us.

"Liz! Let's go!" John grabbed hold of my arm and I yanked him to his feet.

"Pika!"

My heart stopped as the head of a Gyarados thrust out of the water. Its gaping mouth began to glow.

John yelled in pain. He grabbed his leg and fell to the ground.

My name is Elizabeth Maxwell, and I'm going to die.

* * *

Earlier that week I went with Blaine to fight club. His Squirtle was supposed to be resting so we watched a few fights, but after the field cleared out he playfully suggested that we have a fight.

"Come on, I'll go easy on you," he said. "Faraday's got an advantage over Squirtle anyway."

"Psh." I looked down at Faraday. "He's a marshmallow. He can't fight."

"And Squirtle's supposed to be resting. Come on, just for fun. Faraday needs a little excitement in his life."

Faraday looked up at me with large curious eyes. Well I couldn't very well ignore a challenge from Blaine of all people. Squirtle was pretty small anyway.

"Fine. Let's go." I motioned for Faraday to join me at one end of the field, but he looked around in confusion. "Yes, you. You're going to fight Squirtle." Faraday looked at Squirtle then back at me. I think I detected a hint of fear.

"Squirtle, you're up!" Blaine made his way to the other end.

I eventually had to pick Faraday up and walk to my end. Blaine went over the rules, but I'd already delved into my strategy for the fight. A Pikachu's greatest asset was its speed, and given Squirtle's weakness to electricity I knew Faraday only had to dodge a few attacks before getting close enough to deliver a good shock. I'd never been too successful before, but I tried to convey this information telepathically to Faraday, but all he did was grip his tail in fear.

"Are you ready?" Blaine asked.

"Ready."

Blaine smirked. "Then let's begin!"

My pulse quickened. "Faraday, just dodge his attacks til you get close enough."

Faraday didn't move.

"What are you doing!" I kicked him into the ring but he only turned around to me and whimpered.

Blaine and Squirtle both stood still for a moment, trying to gauge whether this was some intricately thought out plan or just plain incompetence.

"Um…" Blaine scratched his head. "Get him a little wet? I guess."

Squirtle bounded forward and a gentle stream of water shot out of his mouth, no more powerful than a garden hose, but Faraday ran for cover behind me. Squirtle looked back at Blaine in confusion.

"Faraday, that was nothing." I leaned down and removed him from my leg. "You can attack him too. Go on."

He tiptoed cautiously out onto the field again while Squirtle stood still.

"Pika?" He looked back at me with questioning eyes.

I nodded. "Shock him."

He closed his eyes, turned around, and short electric discharges shot away from his body, but none of them hit Squirtle.

I sighed. "Can you tackle him or anything?"

Faraday paused for a moment before running toward Squirtle at half speed.

"Oh uh… water gun?" Blaine asked.

Squirtle shot a slightly more powerful stream of water and Faraday let out a pathetic cry as he washed down the field.

"Oh come on you useless little mouse!" I walked out onto the field. "This is how you attack." I started running at Squirtle.

"Wait, Liz!"

Squrtle paused in confusion and then released a powerful blast of water at my chest. I couldn't breathe.

After I wiped the water from my face and opened my eyes I saw Blaine looking down at me on the ground where I lay. "You okay?"

I gasped for another breath and pushed myself into a sitting position. "I told you he was a marshmallow!"

Blaine looked uncomfortably from Squirtle to me. "You're not supposed to attack the Mons."

"I know!" I got up to check on Faraday.

"Hey, sorry about that. I shouldn't have pushed the little dude into fighting."

"Whatever it's fine." I picked Faraday up and stroked his head to get him to calm down. "It was fun."

* * *

The next time I saw John, he raised his eyebrows and grinned. "Well hey, look who it is. The girl who lost to Squirtle."

I rolled my eyes and sat down across from him at the table and looked for a waiter.

"I was going to invite you to the beach but let me know if the water scares you now." He chuckled and took a sip of his drink.

"Go eat a dick."

He let loose one of those deep belly laughs.

"So what the hell you want? I see Sophie has been momentarily detached?"

"She's with friends." He leaned in. "So I actually did want to invite you to the beach. Someone spotted Mew near the old class one distortion the Steelix collapsed."

"You've gotta be kidding me. John. You are a scientist. You don't believe in fairies and unicorns. I am not walking into the forest with you to search for a mythical flying cat."

* * *

So that is why the following day, despite multiple Rain Dance warnings, John and I walked into the forest in search of a mythical flying cat.

The ego on that guy.

I followed him quietly for most of the journey while he laid out in excruciating detail every piece of scientific evidence in favor of the existence of Mew. Trace spatial distortion and temporal anomalies in purported Mew sighting locations, behavioral irregularities of domesticated Mons inconsistent with the presence of any other psychic Mons, and even a sample of hair. Though the DNA sample from the hair yielded an inconclusive results, a few scientists on the fringe had the gall to cite other biomolecular indicators and evidence of a new Mon.

On the other hand it was nice to go on a hike, just the two of us daring each other to go further into the forest, even as a light drizzle started sprinkling the trees overhead.

When we finally stopped for Faraday's sake I felt the overwhelming urge to fill the silence with a question. "Why Sophie?"

He didn't answer at first. His face contorted as he considered his response. "What do you mean?"

"At Sam's place you said…" I couldn't figure out how to paraphrase his words. "John, we've slept together. We've known each other forever. At the risk of sounding like a pining lovesick middle school girl, why don't you…" I took a breath. "Like… me?"

His eyes widened and color faded. "Well I…" He glanced off into the trees. "I mean Liz, it's not like I…" He looked down at Faraday and exhaled. "Woah, hold up." He crouched down to examine the phone on the ground that Faraday had suddenly taken an interest in. "This yours?"

I sighed and found my phone in my pocket. "Nope."

We turned it on and browsed through the most recently used apps. Most recently was a page from 'Dangerous Mons and Where to Find Them' displaying an article on Nidoking. Then a map of the Viridian Forest. Then a few user searches for 'viridian forest rest stops' and 'viridian rangers' and 'nido poison'

"Someone researching Nidoking?" I said.

"Pika." Faraday's ears perked up.

John squinted and looked around. "But why here? The Nidoran family aren't found on Cinnabar." Then his mouth curled into an 'O' and his eyebrows raised. "But you know, that might make sense."

He was about invoke Mew again. God help me.

"Somehow the Mons must know to gather here. Like they can sense the presence of Mew. I've heard theories on this before. Maybe Nidoking are here looking for Mew."

"No! You're just making shit up! Clearly some dumb kid can't tell the difference between Cinnabar and the Viridian Forest and wanted to look for Nidoking. He dropped his phone, how intelligent can this guy be?"

"Pika. Pika." Faraday nudged at my leg.

"But think about it." John said. "Steelix isn't even native to Kanto, so why did we see it here before?"

"Well obviously it swam from Johto." I swatted Faraday away from my leg.

He rolled his eyes at me. "Come on I'm being serious here."

I winked. "Oh right they can't swim, the Steelix must have flown here to see Mew. Look, Onix are native to Kanto. Is it such a stretch to think we'd see a Steelix?"

"But other than us, no one has ever spotted a Steelix in Kanto. We saw one, right here, in this forest. Why?"

A roar echoed through the stormy sky. We turned toward the direction of the sound and I saw a huge purple tail disappear into distant foliage.

"Oh my god." I frantically grabbed a hold of John's shirt like a five year old and immediately reminded myself not to act like a child. "What the hell is that doing here?"

John awkwardly groped at my arms until he reached my hands. His own hands were shaking. "Liz we have to get away from that thing."

I picked Faraday up and we began quietly and swiftly power walking in the other direction. John's grip on my left hand started cutting off the circulation in my fingers.

"There aren't any Nidoking on Cinnabar," he said.

"I know. Why is there a Nidoking on the island?" I asked quietly. "You think there are more?" I don't think he heard my last question over the rain.

A light flashed and Faraday squeaked. I hoped desperately to catch a bolt of lightning but when I looked to the sky I saw the straight dissipating line of a Hyper Beam.

"Rain dance?" My voice hitched.

John said nothing, but he stopped walking. "That direction is the shore." He pulled out his phone but before we could load a map a Nidorino came charging out of trees.

"John!"

It rammed into his leg. We fell over and just as it turned to attack again, Faraday leapt onto its back and loosed a thunderbolt that sent it into a violent seizure.

"You okay?" I helped John to his feet.

He winced in pain but didn't fall so I forced us on toward the shore, forgetting for a moment about Faraday and the Nidorino. We suddenly came to a sharp drop and stumbled down to the shoreline. John screamed in pain.

"John! Can you get up again?"

He tried but collapsed back into the sand. "Where's Faraday?"

I stood up and looked around. "Wait here, I'll be right back."

I climbed back up the side of the sandy slope and ran back into the forest until I found Faraday standing frozen with fear next to the writhing Nidorino.

"Faraday!"

He looked up at me.

"You okay? John's by the beach, we have to go back to him."

He sprinted toward the beach without me and out from a large bush another Nidorino emerged, so I ran away, parallel to the shoreline until I couldn't hear it chasing me.

I looked back. The second Nidorino was nudging the paralyzed one on the ground. Then it turned toward the shore with its ears perked. It was going after John and Faraday. My eyes darted to the brush at my feet. I found a suitable branch.

"Hey! I'm over here!"

Nidorino sniffed the air then caught sight of me.

"Yeah, fuck you. Come and get me."

My nails dug into the soaked bark of the broken branch in my hands. The rain had completely soaked my clothes and leeched the heat from my skin. I shivered as Nidorino charged.

The branch grew heavy. My chest reminded me how it could not even stand a water gun from Blaine's Squirtle. My legs began to shake.

I threw the branch into the brush and jumped down the slope and managed to sneak past Nidorino by running along the coast to where John sat in the sand. Faraday cowered at John's side.

"You okay?"

John grasped his leg and grimaced. "I can't run but I think I can walk."

I spotted a white fin emerge from the violent sea for a moment before disappearing again. "Okay John, we have got to get the fuck out of here. I just ran past one of the Nidorino, and I know Nidoking is…"

A deafening roar cut me off. Nidoking found us and started bashing trees out of the way to get to us.

"Liz! Let's go!" John grabbed hold of my arm and I yanked him to his feet.

"Pika!"

My heart stopped as the head of a Gyarados thrust out of the water. Its gaping mouth began to glow.

John yelled in pain. He grabbed his leg and fell to the ground.

I focused for one intense moment on Faraday, picturing an electrified Gyarados in my mind. He'd already taken out a Nidorino. "Faraday! Shock him!"

He closed his eyes and short electric discharges shot away from his body, but none of them hit Gyarados.

I froze.

Gyarados fired a Hyper Beam and my vision flashed first to white and then to black. Death feels cold.


	9. Space

I opened my eyes to the void. Stars and galaxies took their places on a blackbody background at a chilly 2.7 Kelvin.

I once dreamed of being an astronaut. As a kid in the mentoring program I loathed the day they shipped me off for a visit to the home of the living dead. Well, the retirement home, but same thing. I figured Mrs. Thomson would be a creaky old bag of bones, but she was one tough motherfucker. Nearly broke my fingers when I tried to steal a snack from her kitchen.

She told me stories of her time working at mission control for the first manned spaceflights. She gave the astronauts pretty pictures of herself dolled up in tight bright colored dresses and then joked about catastrophic life support failures when they exited the craft for spacewalks.

I had dreams of waltzing through the front door of Hoenn's Mossdeep Space Center in a spacesuit and proclaiming to the men at mission control, "I'm ready for space. Send me up, boys."

Well I made it. I am cold and wet and weightless. My legs effortlessly sway through the vacuum and my hair extends toward the far reaches of space like the arms of an underwater seaweed.

It's so cold up here. I can see an abnormally bright light on the sky. Perhaps it's the sun, but if so then I am a long way from home. I suppose that doesn't matter now that I am dead.

Death is so cold.

I am wet.

I am… wet? Seems odd. I don't know why I'd still be wet. My arms are solid. So is the rest of my body. Perhaps the afterlife is similar to the living world. Will I still have to pee even though I'm dead?

But now the stars are moving. I don't understand, it's not even a coherent motion from my own rotation, it's random like the atoms of a cold gas. They aren't stars at all.

They're water droplets.

They're all reflecting light from the bright object in my peripheral vision. I reach out and touch them. My hand gets wet. I see now, they've been slowly and gently raining on me this whole time. This must be how it rains without gravity.

"Hello? Hello?" I can still talk.

What happened to me? It was raining. Nidoking charged. John fell. Faraday failed. Gyarados killed me with a Hyper Beam.

"John? Faraday?" Unless it didn't. "Hello?"

How is that possible? Am I still alive? "No…"

This isn't space.

Well of course it is space, but not the kind a thousand kilometers above the surface of the earth. This is curved space. This is a distortion. I'm breathing oxygen and I'm not instantly freezing but gravity is gone and the bending has begun.

It is an icy hand wrapped around my heart. I can't breathe. "John? John! Where the hell are you? Say something!" My head is spinning. I'm still going to die.

No I'm not going to die. The bending has taken hold of my emotions and repeatedly bashed them into the dry dusty ground like Sam's Growlithe did to Sarah's Eevee. It's just so hard to keep a level head.

But yes, I am going to die. It's only been theoretical to this point but I must be in a disconnected manifold. One of Alcubierre's colleagues theorized that it could be possible to distort space so severely with the Marsh tensor field that closed bubbles of spacetime would disconnect from the universe for an indeterminate amount of time before reconnecting, if they ever did at all. Those in academia called it "bubble theory" and they thought it was a complete joke, but I suppose I'll prove them all wrong.

Well, not if I die here first.

"John! Say something!" He has to be out there somewhere. I don't want to die alone. Please God don't let me die alone.

"John!" I'm so cold.

Faraday must be out there too. "Faraday! Do your shocky thing so I can see you. Are you out there?"

I can't hear anything else. I open my mouth to scream John's name but nothing comes out. I can't speak.

Oh god I can't speak. Why can't I speak?

"John?" It comes out barely a whisper but at least I can still talk. Please God don't let me die alone.

But he doesn't call out to me. I don't know what to do. I wonder how I will die now. Probably dehydration. That would be awful. Well maybe I can drink enough rain. Then starvation? Also horrible. I can't tell exactly how big the bubble is, and it seems large, but maybe I'll be lucky and it's small enough that I'll run out of oxygen before anything else. Technically carbon dioxide poisoning. That would be pleasant. Just fall into an endless sleep.

Or maybe I'll reconnect with the universe before then. Ha! Wouldn't that be nice. I'm so cold.

I hear something.

"John? Faraday?"

It sounds like sharp gasps. "Oh my god, John." He's drifting behind me, eyes wincing closed every time he inhales.

"John, say something." He doesn't respond to me. He just keeps inhaling and clenching his fists like he can't hear me. "John?" He still doesn't respond but he is drifting ever so slowly in my direction. He should reach me soon. "Listen, we're trapped in a bubble universe and I don't know if we'll ever get out but please just come here." It's the most ridiculous thing I've said in a long while. I know he has no control over his trajectory in an empty weightless space, but I ask him anyway.

No. Oh no no no. He's not drifting toward me. His path is angled far enough away from me that we won't collide. "John! Look at me!"

He doesn't respond so I unzip my soaking pants and slip them off. But they're not long enough. After tossing the end of a pant leg out like a fishing line it's clear that he is much further away.

"John!" I mash my pants up into a ball and think for a moment that I'm lucky they're dense material and soaking wet. I throw them in the opposite direction and the recoil launches me ever so slowly toward John. The toss has also increased my rotation, so the trip is a bit disorienting.

I start frantically tossing anything else I can to propel myself faster. Shoes, jacket, shirt, I almost throw my phone but it isn't so massive and I convince myself I may need it still.

"Ow." Finally the back of my head hits John's elbow. "John." I pull him toward me and squeeze him tight before pulling back and examining his face in the dim light. He's stopped gasping but there are tears floating away from his eyes and he's shivering.

"John, look at me." I place my hands on his shoulders and shake him a bit and finally he recognizes me.

"Liz?" He starts sobbing and hugs me.

"It's okay, we're together." I stroke his back until he stops crying.

"Where are we?" he asks.

"Bubble dimension." I explain the bubble theory to him without mentioning that we're going to die in here.

"How did it form? And what's that light?"

"Well I'm not sure but…" What is that light? The bubble theory says nothing about that. It should just be a closed space, trapping whatever matter inside. John and I are here. So are the raindrops. Maybe Faraday. I don't know what the light is.

"Could it be Faraday?" John asks.

"No, he couldn't sustain such a constant brightness for so long."

We both cling to each other while we stare at the light.

"You're almost naked," he says, shivering.

I am almost naked. "Take off your clothes, they're soaking wet and taking the heat from your body."

He looks at me skeptically while slowly removing his shirt.

"I had to use my clothes as propellant to get to you," I say, "but now that they're off I'm not cold anymore."

He shrugs and continues undressing while I awkwardly try to keep hold of him so he doesn't drift away into the darkness. "I'm still pretty cold," he says.

I grab his clothes and throw them away from us.

"What'd you do that for?" He tries to reach for them but they float away.

"I lied. I'm still cold. I just didn't want to be the only one."

"Are you fucking serious?"

"Yes! Just… we're bending and we're all fucked up in the head so let me be crazy."

"Are you fucking serious? You couldn't just not throw them away?"

It suddenly occurs to me where we could find a powerful light source. "Hyper Beam!"

John furrows his brow at me. "What? You gonna blast me?"

"Gyarados shot a Hyper Beam. That's where the light is coming from. We're not going to die!" I laugh and smile and kiss him.

"What are you talking about?"

I look back to the light source. "This isn't a bubble universe, it's just a regular old spatial distortion. Well, a very large and asymmetric one, but still a spatial distortion. Of course it isn't a bubble universe, how fucking stupid am I? Bubble theory is ridiculous. We can exit."

John just shakes his head.

"Okay, we must be trapped inside a spatial distortion that almost everywhere looks locally like a three-sphere, but the global topological structure is still connected to the rest of space at a localized two-sphere boundary."

He nods his head. "Oh yeah, I understood all of that perfectly. Great explanation, Liz."

"Oh fuck off. We're in a… almost bubble. We're in a pimple."

"A pimple universe?"

"Not a separate universe, just a large pimple on the fabric of space."

"What does that have to do with Hyper Beam?"

I smile. "What is the only light source bright enough to make that light?"

He nods. "The Gyarados Hyper Beam."

"Yes."

"So as we float here, Gyarados is still firing its Hyper Beam at the edge of this pimple universe?"

I can feel the smile vanish from my face. "Time passes differently in curved space."

He nods. "So if we ever do get out of here, we're going to feel the rest of that Hyper Beam?" he asks.

We're still going to die.

I guess we both realize this. Neither of us speaks. We just reach our arms around each other and lock into a tender embrace. We're going to die, but at least I won't die alone. The touch of his cold wet bare skin against mine is oddly comforting. Our breathing falls into sync and he twirls his fingers through the floating strands of my weightless hair.

"I'm sorry Liz."

I place a hand on the back of his head and run my fingers back and forth through his hair.

"I do… like you. It's just…"

I bring my head up to look him in the eyes. I place a hand on his cheek and I'm consumed with the overwhelming urge to feel his lips on mine one last time. I know we're under the influence of bending, but I can tell neither of us cares about that anymore. We are all that exist in this moment.

"You're intimidating," he says.

"What?"

"You're intimidating."

I resist the urge to scream at him and confirm his accusation. "What do you mean?"

"You asked me before, you know, why I don't like you. And I do, but you're intimidating."

"And you decided to answer my question right now?"

"I'm feeling honest. I thought we were having an intimate moment. We're about to die so I wanted to say."

"Not that kind of intimate, John. What the fuck does that even mean? I'm intimidating?"

"Oh come on, you know what it means." He starts imitating me. "Let's go see the distortion. Let's stare at the angry Steelix. Let's fight a Rhydon. Let's fuck while my boyfriend's away. Let's go chase Zapdos. I don't know, sometimes it's exhausting keeping up."

"How is that intimidating? Those are all awesome. And the Rhydon was your idea. This goddamn trip was your idea. How does that make us different?"

"Okay that's not what I meant." He pauses and struggles for words. "It's like I can never measure up."

"What, measure up to me? Have I robbed you of your masculinity? Are you fucking kidding me?"

"That's not what I mean."

"Oh bullshit! I know, I'm a girl. I'm not supposed to do all the badass guy things. You remember what they called me in high school?"

"I know, the mutant girl, and I'm tired of hearing your same old tired feminist shit."

"Well that same old tired feminist shit is there because butthurt guys like you need an excuse when a girl shows you up. Every time I outscored someone on a test or ran faster in gym or got moved into an advanced course they called it a cheap gene hack, like being genetically engineered is some kind of inhuman advantage. Fuck you. Go back to the void, crying and gasping like when I found you. This intimidating enough for you?"

He says nothing and I notice how much more uncomfortable this argument is since we're still clinging to each other in nothing but damp underwear.

He looks away for a long while before speaking again. "Sorry."

I take a breath and his skin tingles under my fingertips once more.

He smirks. "Well I guess zero-gee sex isn't gonna happen now."

"What?"

"Relax, it's a fucking joke."

"Let's do it." My bra is already floating away when I reach for his underwear.

"What the hell? Are you serious?"

We're facing each other naked now. "You are an unbelievable asshole and I can't talk to you right now, but we are going to die and we are in zero gravity." I slide his cock inside me. "So shut up and fuck me."

The stars in the background of our universe collide and time stretches out toward our inevitable demise and I don't know how long we've been oscillating in free space when something other than John's outstretched palm hits my ass.

I turn around and notice the unconscious body. "Carlos?"


	10. Time

Alakazam opened his eyes. Before I even had time to feel embarrassed about him seeing me in such a compromising position, the air had been sucked from my lungs and water droplets in the air began to vibrate. The light at the center of our pocket space grew bright and my mind stretched thin until John was ripped out of my arms.

When I next opened my eyes I was curled up in the dirt. I looked up against the backdrop of the trees and saw Carlos. He hovered over me and dropped my pants and phone right next to my head before walking away again.

I sat up and found my clothes in a messy pile so I dressed and scanned the forest for John. He wasn't too far away, still lying naked and unconscious on a bed of pine needles and tree bark.

"John," I said softly. Carlos snuck up behind me and dropped a pile of his clothes on the ground. "I remember what happened now," I said.

Carlos stared at me for a moment then whacked me on the head with one of his spoons and teleported away.

"Ow, what the hell was that for?" He was already gone by the time I could say anything. "And why do you still have those spoons?" I mumbled in a softer voice.

Maybe the distortion messed with my memory before, but now that we were out I did remember the split seconds between the Hyper Beam and falling unconscious. I was standing there as scared as Faraday when…

"Oh shit, Faraday!" I looked around and kept shouting his name but I couldn't find him.

"Liz?" John blinked and wiped his eyes.

"Put your clothes on, we have to find him."

We spent hours searching the forest. John also remembered what happened. Just as Gyarados fired a Hyper Beam, Carlos teleported between us and it. He put up some kind of dark field that deflected the Hyper Beam away from us but soon the field grew and engulfed us. I couldn't remember if Faraday was caught in the distortion, but John said he saw Faraday run away before we were blasted. Either way, that little guy had to be somewhere in that forest.

Other than that John didn't say much. I joked a bit about us having sex but he didn't respond. I suppose I didn't quite know what to think of it either so we mostly yelled for Faraday. He never showed up. Though I guess we're lucky Nidoking didn't either.

Eventually John convinced me to go back home.

"Maybe Faraday went to one of our friends," he said. "Ran back to see Blaine and Squirtle?"

So we went to see Blaine. Just as we knocked on the door I heard an unmistakable "Pika" from through the door.

"Faraday?"

Blaine opened the door and Faraday stood next to him on the ground. "There you are you little bastard." I picked him up and hugged him. "We spent hours looking for you."

I turned to smile at John. He only looked at Blaine. "Hey Blaine. What's up with that face?"

Blaine stuttered for a moment. "Where were you?"

John pointed at me. "This one got us stuck in a spatial distortion for a while."

"Why you pointing at me?" I shifted Faraday to my other arm. "You were the one going on about finding Mew in the magical forest of mystery."

"Well it was your buddy Alakazam that made the distortion."

"Oh, I apologize, he really shouldn't have saved our lives like that."

"Chill out, I'm just joking around." He didn't smile.

Blaine threw his arms in the air. "You two were gone for months."

Faraday looked up at me with large teary eyes. We had only been in there a few hours. Maybe overnight? Not more than a day. "What do you mean months?"

Blaine approached me and stroked Faraday's head. "The night you guys disappeared Faraday came to me scared and shaking. I tried to pick him up but he kept shocking me so I just let him in and he sat in the corner crying. I tried calling you but you never answered so I let him stay with me and eventually he calmed down but you guys never came back. It's been months. We filed a police report, there was a search, Anna even came back up here for a while, but it's been so long that we thought you were both dead."

I pulled out my phone, but it had run out of charge. "What, you think I'm stupid? Where's a charger?"

Blaine wordlessly fetched me one and when my phone started up it was flooded with notifications. Calls from Blaine and Anna and the police and the foster home, and countless messages from people I'd barely known, and flagged alerts for news articles featuring my name that led to investigations into the suspicious ongoings of the Cinnabar Forest.

"I don't understand. It was only a few hours. A day or two at most."

Blaine scratched his head and John reached for the charger to check his own phone.

Faraday shivered and an explanation formed in my head. We were trapped in a spatial distortion. Time passes differently in curved space. We thought it would be slower and we'd emerge from it fractions of a second later to the rest of a Hyper Beam, but that's not how it worked. We went faster. Hours for us were months for the rest of the world.

I glanced over at John's phone for the time. He was reading messages from Sophie. Today was the middle of first quarter, second year.

"I've gotta find Sophie." John turned toward the door.

"Wait, John." Blaine followed and I went after them both.

On our way to Sophie's I told Blaine what happened, how we went searching for Mew and found the phone in the forest and ran into the Nidorino and Nidoking and Gyarados and of course the spatial distortion. He remained skeptical on most accounts.

"John?" Sophie's eyes watered up when we arrived at her door. She leapt into his arms and kissed him. Then she took one glance at me. "Where have you two been?" She looked intently at John. "Were you with her this whole time?"

And so we told our story again, and they told us what we had missed. Slowly a picture came together. John and I made calls. People rejoiced in our return and then questioned our outlandish story. I'd been kicked out of my apartment. My stuff had been put into university storage. Same with John.

There was more bad news on the school front. On the one hand I was far enough ahead in classes at the start of last quarter to pass them, some just barely. But I wasn't around to register for second year classes. I lost my scholarship, a new undergrad filled my position in Alcubierre's lab, and even if I managed to start taking classes again I couldn't start until the beginning of next year according to university policy.

I couldn't even get to my stuff on account of some lengthy paperwork process for students back from unexpected leave. That night I slept in Blaine's room. He gave me a pair of pajamas and insisted I take the bed.

I eventually drifted into an uneasy sleep, Faraday in my arms, with my phone and Carlos' key as my only remaining possessions. I dreamt of being a Pikachu.

* * *

"Faraday! Shock him!"

I closed my eyes and felt charge rush out of my body. I opened them and saw myself. Liz and John in front of the Gyarados. Alakazam teleported in and they disappeared into a small point.

Gyarados swayed. Its eyelids grew heavy. Nidoking roared. Gyarados fell to the ground, spraying white water and sand into the rainy sky. That's when I headed into the forest.

I ran until I couldn't hear Nidoking and then I kept running. I came to a large metallic hatch in the ground. There was a window, but it was too dark to see anything down there.

"Hey Liz."

I looked up and the girl with blue hair stood next to me. "Hey Sarah."

We sat next to each other on a nearby bench and looked at the flickering baseball lights in the distance. She handed me a blue banana.

"Rough day?" she asked me.

I nodded. "Lost my keys. Late to class. Feet are kinda sore too."

Eevee jumped into my lap.

Sarah curled strands of her hair over her ear. "I miss you. Haven't seen you in a while. We should hang out sometime."

I smiled. "Yeah we should."

Lightning flashed and in front of us Zapdos descended from the sky, landing on the roof of an aging steel barn frame. It shot a bolt of lightning our way.

* * *

In the morning Faraday didn't want to get out of bed so we lounged there for another hour or two, unsure what exactly to do with ourselves. I might have lain there all day if I didn't decide to call Sarah.

"Sarah? Hey, it's Liz."

"Liz? Oh my god I heard you were back. How are you?"

I chuckled. "Not bad. Kind of exhausted from explaining what happened to everyone that asks."

I heard her laugh. "I can imagine, I heard the story. Stuck in a spatial distortion, huh? Sounds wild."

"Yeah. Pretty wild. So uh, I didn't really have a reason for calling, just wanted to say hi and all."

"Yeah, I'm so glad to hear you're okay. Actually you have great timing, I'm in Cinnabar right now. You wanna meet for lunch or something?"

So just like that I had a fairly compelling reason to get out of bed. Without access to my wardrobe I had to wear the same clothes from our forest trek, but at least I had a chance to wash them overnight.

We decided to meet at Café Descartes, some fancy place with shiny crystal glasses and cloth napkins folded in an odd polygonal shape. A Psyduck maybe? I don't know.

I'd forgotten that it was only a few buildings down from Porter's, the place where Luigi was crushed by a Gyarados. While we waited for Sarah, Faraday played with the ice cubes in my glass. I watched the construction workers as they continued removing tools from the site of the new building.

"Pika!" He'd finally spilled the glass all over the table, startling me with both a shock of electricity and a spray of cold water on my lap.

I refrained from yelling at him. Instead I quietly brushed ice cubes off my legs. "I told you to be careful," I said, my tone a bit more motherly than I'd like.

He backed away from the spill, looked down at it and then back at me as if expecting me to do something about it.

"Yeah yeah, I'll clean up your mess." I stood up and unfolded one of the possibly-psyduck heads to mop up the water.

"Hey there."

I twirled around and saw Sarah waving at me with a smile. "Oh hey Sarah. Sorry for my appearance, I've been wearing the same thing for months and then Faraday decided I was too dry."

She laughed. "Don't worry, I've looked much worse on hikes with this one." She pointed at Eevee.

Sarah wore black flip flops, short blue shorts and a dark purple long-sleeved V-neck that contrasted with the long light blue strands of hair cascading around her on all sides.

We both sat down.

"So... you must be having an interesting day." She made this half smirk as if she intended to apologize to me.

I smiled. "Yeah, up until now its basically been shit."

She reached for the menu. "Then I know what we're going to order. You're gonna love this crepe. Well, I don't know, maybe you don't like crepes." She paused a moment to gauge my reaction. "But I love it, so... you know, we're gonna get it." She winked at me.

"I guess you're the boss."

She smiled back. "Oh hey, it's a porygon."

"A what?"

"Pika!" Faraday jumped onto the table to sniff the folded napkin that Sarah had just noticed and Eevee jumped into my lap.

Sarah held it up. "Yeah, I guess that's one of the things you missed while away." She set down the napkin and pulled out her phone to show me a picture of this pink and blue polygonal creature. "After the whole thing with magnemite being created in a lab people got interested in creating artificial mons. This one's supposed to interface with computers."

"Artificial mons? What else have I missed?"

"On that front?" she asked. "I think researchers in Hoenn are planning on designing a sentient supercomputer."

I chuckled. "No, I just mean in general. What are you doing in Cinnabar anyway?" Eevee pawed for my attention.

"Interviewing. I've been looking for a job. Don't think they're gonna call me back though."

I nodded. "Too bad."

She brightened up. "But I do have a good feeling about another one. It's with the Aura company. Something having to do with promoting human and mon relations? I mean I'd love to just keep with the fight club back in Viridian but my dad wants me to get out of the house and make money of my own, so... here I am."

My misfortune settled again into my stomach. There was a job hunt in my future as well. "Aura huh? What do they do anyway?"

Her eyes drifted away from me. Her lips closed and she pushed Faraday away from licking her face to get a better look at something behind me.

"What's up?" I turned around and saw a man in a blue pin-striped suit and tan overcoat enter a nearby grocery store. "You know him?"

She shrugged. "I guess that's another thing you missed. Apparently he's been asking around about a redhead girl from Viridian that went missing around the same time you did."

"Why's he looking here?"

"Don't know, but he seems pretty certain she's here." She looked back down at the menu and started twisting her fingers in her hair.

"What is it?" I asked.

She looked back up at me. "Well it's just a rumor."

I snickered. "I love a good rumor." The public imagination has always been a rich source of entertainment.

Sarah curled loose strands of hair over her ear and leaned in. "Now it's obviously just gossip. I don't believe it, but you'll probably hear it from other people anyway."

"That's cute."

She gave me an inquisitive look. "What do you mean?"

"You want me to think you don't believe this scandalous gossip, but whatever it is you think it might true. It's written all over your face." I stuck out my tongue at her.

She smiled and rolled her eyes. "No I don't. It's impossible."

"Well what is it?"

"He's supposed to be a psychic."

I widened my eyes as much as I could and stretched my mouth into an awestruck 'O' "No way."

When she couldn't contain herself anymore we both broke out in laughter at the absurdity of it.


	11. Future Sight

I had plans to meet with John that day. He said he had something important to talk to me about and oh boy, he had no idea how right he was.

"Hey Liz."

We sat down across from each other at one of the university restaurants. We hadn't really seen each other for a week or two.

"Look John, before you say anything there's something you should know."

He nodded. "Okay."

I took a deep breath and fidgeted nervously. "I was late."

"Late for what?"

"You know... late." I bit my lower lip and looked away.

He still didn't get it.

"I'm pregnant."

I watched his fists tighten. He opened his mouth to speak then closed it again.

I grasped at my hair. "I found out three days ago and I've been trying to convince myself to tell you."

"You're pregnant?"

I nodded and let the silence stretch out as the realization set in.

"Are you..." He scratched his head. "Do you want to keep it?"

I took my time before answering. "Well, I think I do." I took a moment to glance off into the distance. "I want to be a mother. I never had a real family so why should I pass up the chance to start one?"

Good god did his face whiten at that.

"And don't worry, I'm not going to force you to be in its life if you don't want to."

He stayed silent, only blinking his eyes more rapidly than usual.

"But that's not all."

His eyes narrowed at me. "What do you mean that's not all?" His words were slow and deliberate.

"Well." I sighed. "Since it was conceived in a spatial distortion..."

He started rubbing his arm. "What? Is something wrong? Will it come out... deformed? Or something?"

I shrugged. "Maybe? Doctor said it will probably be fine, but it might have like..."

"Like what?" he asked.

"I don't know. Three heads? Might breathe fire? Power of flight?"

Finally his mouth widened and I could see he understood. "Wait... Liz. Are you..."

I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing. "Oh sweet lord your face!"

He stood up and started breathing heavily. "Elizabeth? Are you... what the hell? Do you have no soul? I was dying over here."

"Holy crap." Tears were streaming from my face. "That is priceless. Is it gonna be deformed?" I hadn't laughed that hard in a long time.

He paced back and forth a few times then sat back down and crossed his arms. "You are such an unbelievable dick."

"Oh man." I wiped the tears from my eyes. "You fell so hard for that. Of course I don't want to be a mom. You think I'm insane?"

I erupted into another fit of laughter, made all the sweeter by the stares of our confused acquaintances at tables nearby.

He exhaled. "Well at least you're not actually pregnant."

* * *

It was so good to be back. They took my pictures. They put my name in the headlines. They called me Elizabeth Maxwell, the girl who folded spacetime.

Turned out the job search wasn't too painful at all. Not only was I a minor celebrity in the Cinnabar media, but I was also surprisingly well known among spatial distortion research circles. Alcubierre said he could take me back starting next academic term, but then the Silph company offered me a job with a substantially larger salary. I'd only be an intern, but apparently my experiences both in the lab and inside a months long distortion meant I actually had something unique to offer. And on top of that, I'd be sharing an apartment with Sarah.

After my brilliantly executed pregnancy scare all John had to tell me was that he'd been approached by David, the 'psychic' in the blue suit and tan overcoat. John thought for some reason that the missing redhead girl had something to do with us but all I heard coming out of his mouth was paranoia.

Afterward I figured I'd say some more goodbyes before my departure to Saffron city. Blaine was in his room, working on a lab report. Something about gene splicing. He said his lab partners were out partying.

Alcubierre was in his lab, though I felt strange seeing him again. Not sure why.

I saw a few other people from classes but the one I'd miss the most turned out to be Carlos.

He had my rock seat positioned next to him as usual. He even had a small crowd that day so I looked like an unimaginable badass when I walked through his 'force field' and offered him a bag of jelly beans.

The crowd called out to me in astonishment but I followed Carlos' lead and quietly ate my jelly beans. When he finished he handed me the empty bag.

"Thanks for saving my life," I said.

He didn't say anything.

"I mean, great job fucking up my timeline," I winked at him, "but mostly thanks for saving my life."

Still nothing, but I imagined him grinning at that.

"In case you haven't already read my mind or something, that's why I'm leaving for a while. Heading to Saffron City."

The crowd continued taking pictures of us. I pulled out the key.

"Guess I won't have time to bug you about this thing again."

_Puzzle._

"Yeah I know. But since you never say anything more than that I have no idea how to solve it. Any hints before I go?"

And this time he did say something different.

_Unsolved._

I had to blink my eyes a few times after that word resonated through my inner thoughts. "Unsolved puzzle? So you mean all this time it wasn't a test for me to figure out what the key is for?"

He didn't say anything.

"You have no idea what it's for, do you?"

Finally he shook his head, one of those really slow head shakes, like a quarter Hertz in frequency. What a troll.

I chuckled. "So you were asking me to tell you what it's for. Sorry I don't know, buddy." I stood up. "Well I should go." It felt strange going in for a hug. How do you even hug an Alakazam? There was the crowd too, so instead I waved goodbye to him and walked back toward the crowd.

I was a celebrity all over again. They wanted to know why he saved me and how long we had been friends and how often I come out to see him and even what Carlos' favorite food was.

When I managed to extricate myself and head back toward the university, a pair of footsteps followed be back.

"Hey there."

I turned around to see who spoke. "Hey." I saw David the psychic.

He scurried to catch up. "Mind if I ask you a question?"

"What, about that missing girl you're looking for?"

He nodded. "Yes in fact, the redhead. Her name's Karen. Just curious if you know anything about her."

"Can't just read my mind for the answer?"

"Well it's not as simple as that. Can't just read your thoughts at will, but that would be fantastic." He smiled. "I ask because she disappeared around the same time as you. Know anything about it?"

I shook my head and continued walking. He shut up but walked along side me.

"You want anything else?" I asked.

"No. I just think it's ironic."

Here we go. He thinks he's so clever. Reminds me a little of John.

"You don't think I'm actually a psychic," he continued.

I didn't bother saying anything. He's the type that likes to hear himself speak.

"You just sat down with an Alakazam. You talked to one of the few mons known to be able to telepathically communicate complex thoughts and you don't think I can do the same."

"Yes, which is not ironic at all because it's been demonstrated plenty of times that humans and mons are capable of a psychic connection but never between humans."

He shrugged. "Sounds reasonable." He adjusted his glasses and ruffled his coat. "You ever been to Johto?"

"Nope."

I tried to think of a nice way to tell him to piss off.

"You're not curious why I'm asking?"

"Nope."

"Odd. Usually people are more curious. You ever been out of the country?"

Yeah, but I didn't tell him.

"Do much traveling at all?"

Finally I stopped walking. "Look guy, I don't mean to be rude but is there something you want? Because if there is then just tell me, otherwise I have to get back home."

His smile drooped. "Sorry. I didn't mean to bother you. I'm just a big fan of yours."

"A fan huh?" I found I had a lot of male 'fans.' "Thanks, but I should really be getting home."

I turned to continue walking and he mutter some apology. Then I was hit in the back of the head.

* * *

I woke up tied to a chair. I couldn't move my arms and legs. A belt wrapped around my torso. My eyelids were heavy. The back of my head pulsed but when I leaned back it came to rest on an ice pack.

"Oh hey." David stood up from a computer and walked toward me. "Hi." He waved at me. "You feeling okay?" He wore a large metal mesh apparatus on his head connected to a series of bright neon wires.

"What's happening?" My words were slurred.

He smiled. "Oh good, you sound fine. Look I'm sorry for all this." He noticed the mesh on his head. "Oh, I'm still wearing this."

He removed it and placed it on the table in front of me, carefully coiling some loose wires.

"I'm so sorry, I probably look like some psycho kidnapper." He started untying my binds. "Well I guess if you want to get technical I did kidnap you."

My arms and legs were free now and he motioned for me to stand up but I felt so dizzy.

"And I did drug you, but with good reason."

I blinked a few times. "Drugged?"

He nodded and fetched a glass from the other room. "Lemonade?" He took a sip and motioned to me. "See, this one isn't drugged." He set it down next to me.

"I had to bring you here because I can't use my psychic powers without this," he said, pointing to the mesh head apparatus.

While his back was turned to me I picked up the lemonade and dumped it out beside me. He noticed immediately but didn't say anything.

"And I know you don't believe me but I need to tell you something. It's about your future."

Must have been the drugs. I felt like going to sleep but I rubbed my eyes. "You're not a psychic." I don't know why I hadn't started bashing his face in yet, or at least screaming at him.

"Yes, yes, of course I'm not, Liz. Just hear me out okay? And I'll give you a present." He held up a stuffed Bulbasaur toy and waved it at me. "See, it's adorable."

I stood up and steadied myself.

"Alright you're not in the mood, just listen. I know things about your future, and you have to listen closely."

I looked around the room. Not too much clutter. He had plenty of LED screens lining the walls, some of them displaying scientific articles and news reports. One had a picture of me. "Where's the exit?"

He looked to his left. "Right here." He stood up and opened the door. "Look, you can go but first just listen. You're in danger. Your friend Sarah took a job at Aura but she isn't safe there. You need to tell her not to take that job."

Finally the anger hit me. "You kidnapped me. You drugged me."

"I know, I'm sorry. It was the only way I could read you. But that's not all. You're going to meet someone in Saffron. A man with a red bowtie will ask you if you want to save the world. Don't talk to him. Don't trust him. You have to stay away from him."

I checked my pockets. Nothing seemed missing so I headed for the door.

"Liz, I know you don't believe me now but when the time comes you have to stay away from him."

I stepped out the door.

"Wait."

I turned around and he tossed the stuffed Bulbasaur toy to me. "I can read your mind. I know you poisoned Kurt."

I wish I could blame it on the drugs but I nearly tripped over myself walking out that door.


	12. Diffusion

It was a short bus ride from the docks to Pallet House Restaurant and Inn. At the station I walked by a woman passing out fliers for the Clear Air Movement.

During the past couple years Kanto and Johto had been in some pretty heated disputes over uranium mining rights in the Tohjo mountains. Kanto made the claim that we had a higher demand for energy, Johto accused us of taking the resources it needed to grow its economy. The Clear Air Movement advocated both sides leaving the mountains all together in order to preserve their natural beauty.

Of course that was not only a non-solution for both sides, but the name didn't even make any sense considering that one of the major advantages of nuclear power over traditional energy sources was its lack of air pollution. They said their name was supposed to convey a desire to 'clear the air' between Kanto and Johto, but it was still a stupid fucking name.

"Help us clear the air," she said, listlessly handing me a flier. I threw it in the nearest trashcan and took another look back at her.

The rest of Pallet Town looked pleasant enough. I checked the shipping status of my stuff then walked the few blocks to the Inn. Despite sleeping for most of the journey, Faraday fell fast asleep in the little baby backpack on my back. I walked by shops and a park and an old fashioned movie theater. More than a few people smiled at me, though one of them was a homeless man with shaky hands and a couple missing teeth.

When I entered the front office a little girl in a magenta jumper rushed to meet me and held up a daisy. "Welcome to Pallet House."

The woman behind the counter smiled and shook her head. "Come on Dee, I told you to go play in the other room."

I took the daisy and waved goodbye to the girl. "I'm here to check in. I have a reservation."

The woman behind the counter nodded and opened the binder in front of her. "Alright, and what's your name dear?"

"Elizabeth Maxwell."

She looked up with raised eyebrows. "Ah, you're Sarah's friend." She came out from behind the counter and offered me her hand. "Glad to meet you."

"Um, yeah, nice to meet you too."

She smiled and we shook. "I'm Judy, though you might hear the folks around here call me Mrs. K."

"You know Sarah?" I asked.

"Yeah, since she was a baby. I've known her family since before the mons appeared. They used to live here before moving to Viridian. I'm sure you've heard of Norman. Anyway Sarah's upstairs, she told me to let her know when you got here. Let me show you to her room."

She showed me upstairs, past the old fashioned lamps and oil paintings of idyllic country pastures and the southern coast. Sarah opened the door, hair wet from a recent shower, and hugged me. "Liz, you're here."

We both smiled politely at Mrs. K until she left us alone. Faraday finally awoke and took to examining the open bathroom. When Sarah closed the door her face immediately flushed with worry. "You were kidnapped?"

So I threw my bag on her bed and sat down next to it. I pulled out a small metallic box. It felt cold against my bare leg.

She ruffled her hair with a towel one more time then sat next to me. "I don't understand though. What did he do? He just let you go afterward?"

I shook my head. "It's like I said. I woke up drugged and couldn't remember anything. But yeah, he let me go."

"What did he say?"

I still couldn't figure out the significance of his warning about Sarah's job. "He said he read my mind and saw my future."

Sarah didn't say anything but she obviously wanted to know his prediction. I considered for a moment not saying anything just to tease her with anticipation but I continued anyway.

"He told me I'd meet a man in a red bowtie who would ask me if I wanted to save the world, and that I should stay away from him."

"Save the world? From what?"

"Didn't say."

She looked at the metal box next to my leg. "And what's that?"

"Something he gave me."

"A metal box?"

I shook my head. "It's inside." I handed it to Sarah and she pulled out the stuffed Bulbasaur toy.

"What is it? And why is it in a box?"

So I decided to run through my rationale all at once. "Well I know he's not actually a psychic. Best I can figure is he kidnapped me because he wants something from me. Don't know what yet, but he obviously made sure to find out a secret detail of my life to tell me in order to make it seem like he's actually a psychic so that I'd believe him when he told me his 'vision.' But really he must know this guy with a red bowtie already and for some reason wants me to stay away from him. Then when he gave me that toy and I thought it must be some sort of tracking device or listening device. I had it checked out by a guy I know and he said there's no electronics, but I kept it in a conducting box just in case. You know, to block out any transmissions."

Sarah cracked a smile. "You sure he's not listening in right now?"

"I was kidnapped! What the hell you making jokes for?"

She smiled. "Sorry, I know, it's just that you have that look on your face."

"What look?"

"Of course he's not a psychic, but you think it might true. It's written all over your face." She winked.

"Oh, ha ha, throwing my words back at me. I don't think he's a psychic, I just haven't figured out who could have told him..."

"Told him what? What secret did he know?"

It wasn't anything particularly terrible or embarrassing, I just hadn't thought about it for the longest time. "When I was a kid I poisoned a boy from the foster home."

Sarah's smile vanished. "Really?"

"Don't worry, he's not dead. I just made him sick for a few days."

"Oh."

"It's just that until now I've never told anyone about it."

"So obviously David's a psychic."

"Of course," I rolled my eyes, "he's obviously a psychic."

She leaned in a bit. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"You can't just say you poisoned someone and not tell the story."

* * *

It was one of the days we were scheduled to meet our elderly mentors at the retirement home. The reception hall hosted a grand buffet breakfast and we were supposed to be socializing with everyone.

I'd been held back for an extra scolding at the beginning. The previous week I'd been catching Caterpie in the middle of the night to put in the beds of girls who'd been teasing me, so I had to be reminded to behave. I entered the reception hall just in time to catch Kurt running away from Mrs. Thomson.

She told me some idiot child knocked over her mug. It broke on the floor so she asked one of the staff to collect the pieces for her. I saw one of the larger pieces had the Mossdeep Space Center logo and "MSC815" printed at the bottom in a dark bold font. At the time she shrugged it off. I asked her if it was special and she told me it was just some old souvenir from one of her old missions, but at the end of the visit when I left her room I stayed outside the door and pressed my ear against its surface. She started crying.

Years later I'd learn that the mug came from one of the earliest missions. She lost her husband to a catastrophic launch failure. But on that day of the breakfast, just hearing her cry was enough.

I got a hold of one of the infamous blood apricorns. Mixed with a high enough concentration of carbonic acid it made humans violently ill for at least a full 48 hours but never really got severe enough to kill anyone. I slipped it in his chocolate milk. That was fun. I felt like an assassin. I decided if I ever became an assassin I'd call myself the Black Widow. I don't really know why I settled on that name, it's a bit childish in retrospect, but yeah I poisoned that bastard. I wanted to rub it in his face and make sure he never bothered Mrs. Thomson again but then I figured if I did that he might get mad at Mrs. Thomson so I never said anything, and he never had a clue that I did it.

But now Mrs. Thomson is dead and I haven't spoken to Kurt since I left the home, so I've got no idea how David ever found out about that.

* * *

Sarah suggested a change of scenery. That evening we visited the windmill out at the northeast edge of town. The walk was a bit tiring. We'd gone through nearly all of old town Pallet, past the field used by the Pallet fight club, past a series of adorable rural family homes and finally to the path of solar powered lights up the hill to a lone white windmill. It was late afternoon by then. We'd need those lights by the time we came back down.

The windmill was the first of what some hoped would be the Pallet wind farm, but due to the efforts of mon activist groups the project was shut down in order to preserve the wildlife. Now that the lone windmill stood on that hill it seemed even more mons took a liking to the place.

As we trekked up the hill Faraday and Eevee broke away from us and sprinted toward the windmill.

"Hey! Where you going? Come back." But Faraday ignored me.

Sarah laughed. "You don't have to be such a mom about it. He'll be fine. The mons are really friendly here."

The lights hadn't turned on, but nevertheless a couple of them had already attracted Slowpoke. I stopped at one and kneeled down.

"What are they doing here?" I asked.

"Don't know." Sarah kneeled down next to me. "Sometimes I've seen them around the lights but no one knows why they do it."

I scratched the Slowpoke on the head and after about five seconds he looked up at me and opened and closed his mouth at me like a fish, then made this funny "hmm?" sound like he was waiting for something.

I stood up and saw fire. "Woah, is that..."

Sarah smiled and nodded. "Ponyta. Haven't seen one around here for a while."

When we reached the windmill Faraday and Eevee returned and we fed bread crumbs to the Pidgey and the Doduo that were brave enough to approach. The lone Ponyta grazed in the distance, its fiery mane reduced to a low flicker.

A couple Rattata approached us for food but the Pidgeys chased them away. After a while the Slowpoke I petted from the lighted path made its way up to us and gave us clueless looks.

We sat down to watch the mons play under the multicolored gradient of an evening sky and exchanged stories of adventurous youth. She told me how she rescued Emmy, her Eevee, from a fight between a Victreebel and a Pinsir. I told her how John and I got lost in the desert of Orre for so long we couldn't even remember the entire ordeal. We laughed and enjoyed the rare opportunity to run our hands through the grass and look down at the tiny little lights of civilization.

A shot rang out through the sky.

Two more followed it and then a ferocious roar resonated over the treetop line.

The Pidgey scattered to the wind, the Doduo took off to the west, the Slowpoke didn't do all that much.

Sarah stood up and I followed. Faraday looked up at me with wide eyes and tight lips. It seems all to often that he's a helpless child waiting for someone to tell him everything will be okay.

"What was that?" I asked Sarah.

She took a few careful steps in the direction toward the forest, undoubtedly entranced by the low periodic rumble that soon turned into a distinct path of rustling trees.

"I think something's coming this way," she said.

I jogged out in front of her down the hill toward the edge of the forest.

"Liz, what are you doing?"

I could hear labored breathing. The vegetation perturbations rose to an alarming amplitude when a Venusaur barreled out from the treeline, covered in blood and the liberated body parts of a Scyther. A single scythe, shallowly embedded in the Venusaur's left rear thigh, dangled precariously as it continued to charge me.

Visions flashed before my eyes of a charging Nidoking, of a Gyarados ready to fire a Hyper Beam, of space bending my mind and body into a curved black void and my heart punched at the fragile bones of my ribcage like a wrongly convicted felon.

I was floating in space again and I couldn't breathe. I'd never felt such a terror in my life.

"Liz!"

Time stopped and curled in on me. I closed my eyes and felt the cold condense on my skin.

"Liz!"

I opened my eyes. I was standing still. The Venusaur had collapsed at the edge of the treeline and spewed a fine sparkly dust into the air.

"Liz, snap out of it. We have to get downwind."

My heartbeat calmed and my vision delivered me back to familiar Cartesian coordinates as Sarah guided me south.

I glanced back at the Venusaur. "What just happened?"

Sarah looked concerned. "I was going to ask you that. You were screaming. You didn't move."

"What?" I shook my head. I'd just been standing there. "My head went a bit weird for a second but I wasn't screaming."

A Ninetales glided out of the forest and descended on the collapsed Venusaur like the angel of death. Ninetales gently removed a bloody bright blue ribbon from the Venusaur's wilting flower and then whisked toward us. It gazed at me with penetrating ruby eyes while the ribbon fluttered in the breeze. It waved spontaneously at first but then wrapped into a single knot as if tied by some invisible hand around the fox's neck before she returned to the forest.

In that moment I had a choice to turn back around and alert someone else to the unconscious Venusaur on windmill hill, or venture toward the ethereal firefox and the sound of gunfire. What do you think I did?

"Liz, where are you going? Are you sure you're okay? What happened to you back there? We should really go back."

I liked that she was the voice of reason yet followed me anyway. Even Emmy followed, soon by Faraday who I suspect didn't want to be left alone.

I heard the sound of frantic footsteps on dried foliage.

"They're not gonna put me through the loop." A man appeared, holding a rifle. "I'm not gonna let them put me through the loop. The loop never ends."

"Sarah..." I whispered.

She stopped but he saw us and took aim.

"Who are you? Did you come to close the ends?"

I shook my head and raised my hands in surrender. "No, we just followed a Ninetales into the forest."

He laughed. "You're lying. You came to make the higher order corrections. I know how it works; one loop, two loop, three loop, four..."

"No that's not us," Sarah said. "We don't want any corrections."

The man grasped at his hair and yelled as he rammed his forehead into a tree trunk. "I won't do it! I'm not the phoenix. You throw me in that fire and the ashes will cool and flutter away but I will not rise again." He thrashed at the air and then aimed the rifle at us again. "Don't make me do it!" He started crying, his arms started shaking.

I became aware that Sarah was slowly positioning herself between him and I. "Please," she said. "We don't want to make you do anything. I just don't want my friend to get hurt."

"Sarah," I said in a scolding whisper. But she dug her finger nails into my wrist and stood her ground.

The man shook his head one more time. "I will not let it become a periodic motion." He cocked the rifle.

"Linus!" a woman yelled from nearby.

He turned and shot at her while another man rushed from the other direction and tackled Linus to the ground.

"Don't do it!" Linus yelled as he rolled helplessly on the ground. "Don't enter the loop. By the flame of Moltres I won't let them close the loop."

The woman and two other men emerged from the forest.

"Tie him up," the oldest man said.

"What the hell are you two doing out here?" The woman approached us.

I came out from behind Sarah. "We followed a Ninetales in here. We heard gunshots then a Venusaur came out of the forest and collapsed and then the Ninetales appeared."

She looked back at the oldest man.

He set down his rifle and began ruffling through his pack. "You girls shouldn't be out here."

Linus was tied up but that didn't stop his raving. "Don't let them go. They're on the Midnight Marsh to Amaranth."

"Goddamn!" the woman waved her rifle at Linus. "Can we shut him up already before he gives everything away."

The older man knocked Linus out with a pneumatic injector and got right in the woman's face. In a calm lowered voice he said to her, "Can you keep a level head?"

She looked down to the ground. "Yes sir."

So next he approached us.

"What happened here?" I asked.

The silence was far too long. The four of them exchanged knowing glances. He pointed in the direction from which we came. "There's a Venusaur out there. It's been causing some folks trouble and we're out here to capture it. Linus here had the unfortunate luck to take a Confuse Ray from that Ninetales you saw. He opened fire. Things got messy. But we'll clean it all up. You should get out of here while there's still light."

"Pika." Faraday scratched at my leg. I picked him up.

Sarah and I thanked them for saving our lives. We walked back the way we came, past the body of the Venusaur and back up the hill.

"Liz, I need to stop for a minute." Sarah sat down in the grass near the dully illuminated base of the windmill. A lone Slowpoke stood still and blinked at her.

I kneeled down, Faraday in my arms. I felt an uncomfortable mixture of guilt and gratitude. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have run off like that. It's a thing I do, I don't know why, but I can't just not run toward danger. I didn't think we'd be at the end of a rifle."

Sarah shook her head. "No, I'm alright. That's not it."

"What do you mean?"

Before she answered, a white whispy shape caught my attention at the edge of my peripheral vision. Ninetales had emerged one last time. It's ruby eyes flashed in the fading light and it ran across the dark Pallet grass.

Sarah touched my arm and looked into my eyes. "I know that guy."


	13. The Spearhead

Sarah met Linus in Celadon City. She and another girl were there interviewing for a position at a marketing firm and in the evening they went to the Casino. While mocking the unintentionally hilarious song choices of the exotic dancers Linus approached them and invited them to the Underground.

On the outskirts of town near the road to Sinopia a fight club of sorts took bets on a series of mon fights.

Sarah said the night started off fun but Linus became more belligerent the more he drank, engaging in repeated unwanted physical contact just as often as he boasted how he truly knew what it meant to fight with a mon.

Eventually they made up an excuse to leave. Linus never mentioned where he was from or what he did, but Sarah did remember that he was particularly adamant about one thing: no one understood the mons like him, no one.

After Pallet we headed north to Viridian. We agreed not to dwell on the encounter at the windmill, but the bus ride was too long and too quiet not to.

"I know you don't want to talk about it but are you sure you're alright after the Pallet forest?" she asked me.

Sarah said I was screaming that night, the kind of scream you make when you're about to die. She said I called out for John.

I shook my head. "We can talk about it all you want but I don't know what to say. I don't remember screaming."

"But you did." She paused and looked away for a moment. "You were absolutely terrified and then a second later you looked fine and ran into the forest. You sure you don't want to talk about it?"

I shrugged.

"And you're sure nothing else happened when David kidnapped you?"

I shook my head. She stared at me for a while the same way Anna used to when I just didn't have the energy to tell her to leave me the fuck alone.

But Sarah didn't press on any further. She shrugged and pulled out her phone. "Well then I guess there's nothing else to do than to show you this excruciatingly adorable video."

It was a recording of a teenage boy dancing with three baby Houndour to a slightly sped up version of the song 'Aborda El Tren De Fiesta' and yes, it was excruciatingly adorable.

I finally met Sarah's dad Norman. He was a charmer, made Sarah blush at the things he said to me. But he was a gracious host. He let me and Faraday gorge ourselves at dinner and offered to watch the mons when Sarah and I went to meet Anna and Sam for lunch the next day.

I could barely believe how happy Anna was to see me. She nearly squeezed the life out of me. She and Sam were enthralled by our near death run in with the characters in the Pallet forest but when I asked how they'd been they came up suspiciously lacking in detail.

There was no physical contact, their glances at each other were quiet and plastered in polite smiles. In the chance moment that Sarah and Anna were both in the restroom, I glanced over at Sam with a raised eyebrow.

He smiled back and nodded slowly, the kind of gesture you only make when you're alone at a table with someone you don't want to talk to.

"So uh..." he started to say. "Doesn't like her given name?"

It took me a moment to realize he was talking about Anna. "Oh, you mean Agatha? Oh god no, she hates it. Did she tell you that was her actual name?"

Sam nodded. "Yeah, she did. I think it's nice name."

I shrugged. "She rarely tells anyone. She can't stand it when people call her that, so when she tells someone it's kind of a big deal."

"Yeah, well she's a great girl..." he ended on a higher pitch. The kind that leads to a 'but...'

I nodded back. "I know what you mean."

By the end of lunch we had somehow decided on visiting the Viridian Forest in the evening. Anna and Sam had also heard a great deal about the investigation into the missing girl Karen, and now that Anna had befriended the Gastly that haunted Sam's house, she'd developed a taste for danger.

That night we all walked the darkened road to the Viridian forest: me and Faraday, Sarah and Emmy, Anna and Gastly, Sam and Growlithe.

After we evaded the guards intended to keep people out at night, Sam entertained us with outlandish horror stories of people who came unprepared to the Viridian forest. Flocks of Spearow that rob unarmed travellers of their food, belongings, and clothes, swarms of Beedrill that impale small children and pin them to trees, and gangs of Nidorino that pound even large groups into submission only to be trampled to death by the elusive Nidoking.

His stories dripped with hyperbole but I still felt... an uneasiness as we ventured deeper into the forest. Growlithe, Gastly and Emmy all seemed to grow more alert and excited as we walked while Faraday practically clung to my leg.

"Here it is." Sam motioned to a large rock illuminated by the moonlight. They called it the Spearhead.

We all climbed to the top and the view was just as he described: Lots of barely visible trees in one direction, and the lights of Viridian city in the other.

Anna passed out drinks and we all stayed to talk and enjoy the view. There was one awkward moment when Sam mentioned the rock was a popular romantic location for adventure seeking couples and we all went silent because no one wanted to acknowledge the fact that desipite Anna moving to Viridian city, she and Sam were clearly not dating. But otherwise it was nice night.

Until the Fearow attacked.

"Get down!" Sam yelled and led us down the face of the rock as the Fearow plummeted toward us.

It let out a Screech and I nearly tumbled the rest of the way down as my legs grew weak and my balance faltered. Faraday on the other hand didn't have my balance. As I scrambled to the bottom to check on him, Sam had already commanded Growlithe to turn and face the Fearow. As it neared us Growlithe let loose a Fire Spin, filling the air with flame and cinders and momentarily warding off the bird's attacks.

Once at the bottom Anna turned to the sky. "Gastly, can you hit it with a Confuse Ray if it comes back?"

Sam shook his head. "We don't want that thing confused." He turned to me. "Can Faraday hit it?"

I looked at the shivering yellow mouse. He already knew we needed him but it didn't help his fear.

Anna commanded Gastly to shroud us under a Night Shade and Sarah knelt down next to Emmy, whispering urgent instructions to her Eevee. I could feel Faraday's internal struggle. He knew he was our best chance at combating the bird.

"Come on boy, I know you can do it." He winced and then bounded out in front of us, back up the face of the rock next to Growlithe. He looked back at me for a moment and I flashed him the biggest smile I could manage. "You can do it buddy. Knock that piece of shit out of the sky."

So we all watched as Fearow turned to attack again. Faraday remembered the falling Gyarados. "Pika!"

Electricity jumped into the air in a brilliant flash of white, but not toward Fearow. Growlithe seized and howled from the unexpected shock as the Fearow grew closer. Growlithe tumbled back down the rock and Faraday froze in place, the spear of his attacker's beak bearing down on him.

I ran to him. My footing was tenuous at best and my legs still shook with weakness but I reached Faraday and scooped him into my arms with enough time to look up into the eyes of the Fearow.

"No!" I screamed at it and rolled to the side. I remember its wings brushing against me and then a blinding Swift from Emmy before she went in for a Bite. Gastly followed with Hypnosis and I can only assume it hit me as well because my vision went wrong again.

Space curved in on me like the night of the bloody Venusaur and flashing mons raced through my mind. They all came at me like bullets: Rhydon, Zapdos, Nidoking, Gyarados, Venusar, Fearow.

"No!" I held Faraday tighter until the fear and constricting darkness all faded into a silent night.

When I first became aware of sounds again I heard a familiar voice.

"Pika?"

At least I knew he was safe.

"Pika?"

I felt my eyes squeezing shut so I fought them back open. Faraday's face perked up and his tail wagged back and forth in triumph. "Pi!" He licked me and I felt a smile form on my own face.

"Get your dirty tongue off me Señor Friendly Fire." He kept licking me anyway.

The others didn't look so relieved.

"Are you okay?" Sarah asked.

"I just avoided being impaled by a Fearow. I'm awesome. You guys manage to clean up my boy's mess?" I gave Faraday a noogie. "How's Growlithe?"

Sam waved the comment off. "Growlithe's fine, don't worry about it. Faraday was just scared."

Sarah tried to smile. The Fearow was gone but she wasn't okay. "It happened again. You kept screaming like you were dying, long after the Fearow was gone."

I didn't really know what to say, having been accused twice of something I couldn't remember doing. I felt fine, even giddy at the realization I'd narrowly avoided death.

Sarah told Sam and Anna they could go on ahead. She'd walk back with me alone but they refused to leave in case we faced another unexpected attack.

So it wasn't until we left the forest and parted ways with the other two that Sarah mentioned it again.

"Liz we should really talk to someone. I don't think you're okay."

I shrugged. "But I can't remember any of it." Apparently it was reproducible and had been observed by multiple people, but that still didn't help me remember anything.

But she wasn't deterred. She said she might no someone we could talk to. She did have a point. Missing spans of my memory didn't sound like anything good but I wasn't about to start making that public knowledge. So we compromised. We agreed to talk to the police.

"You're here to report a kidnapping?" After a long wait an officer met us by the front desk. She looked us over once and decided we weren't even worth a seat.

Sarah looked at me, expecting me to talk.

"Well go on," I said.

Sarah sighed. "Her name is Elizabeth Maxwell. She's very stubborn."

But the officer was having as much fun as I was. "Can you give me a description of Elizabeth Maxwell?"

Sarah looked confused. "Well, she's right here."

The officer shifted toward me and I saw her name: Cortez.

"What the hell are you reporting?" She turned back to Sarah in disdain. "Is this a future kidnapping? Are you planning to tie her up?"

"What? No." Sarah looked to me, hoping I'd explain for a brief moment before realizing she'd severely miscalculated how much I wanted to be there. "She was kidnapped a few days ago but was let go."

Officer Cortez nodded. "Okay, do you know who it was that took her and where it occurred?"

Sarah nodded. "His name is David..." She looked to me. "Do you know his last name?"

I shook my head.

Sarah looked back to officer Cortez. "Well I don't know his last name, but he lives somewhere on Cinnabar island.

Cortez placed her notepad on the counter and rubbed her forehead. "So this girl here was kidnapped on Cinnabar island, released, then traveled to Viridian to make a report of it?"

"Well... she..." Sarah clearly hadn't thought this out, and to be honest watching her was fun. "Well she had to meet me in Pallet and she didn't want to have to deal with the police because she might miss her boat."

Cortez nodded. "And why didn't you report it in Pallet?"

Sarah sighed. "I don't know. She didn't want to. I told you she's stubborn, she likes to run into dark forests at night and pretend she's the fucking master of the mons. Ask her."

I laughed. "It's true, I am stubborn."

Cortez hung her head in defeat then yelled at some office worker to bring her a coffee. Sarah and I exchanged taunts in that time.

"Oh," Sarah said, "and the other reason we didn't have time in Pallet is because we nearly died in the forest. We met a group there and they told us they were hunting a Venusaur and one of them went crazy and threatened to shoot us."

Cortez picked up her notepad again. "Well it seems you two have some terrible luck." Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

Sarah nodded. "Okay, I know it all sounds outlandish but..." She silently pleaded to me for help. "But I recognized the crazy guy who tried to shoot us. His name's Linus and I met him once before in Celadon.

Cortez finally perked up. "Linus from Celadon? Might have heard of him."

Sarah looked pleasantly surprised.

Cortez motioned us toward one of the offices. "Could you look at a few photos for me?"

And so pieces started falling together. Sarah identified Linus as the person in the pictures so Cortez told us he'd been known for harassing owners of domesticated mons in Celadon. Recently, however, he'd come west and although Cortez wasn't allowed to give us details, she said that Linus was a suspect in the case of the missing girl Karen.

I finally had to break my silence. I told her how David had asked me about Karen before he kidnapped me. Once Cortez had a reason to believe we weren't full of shit she listen to our whole story.

By the end Sarah and I didn't know much more than what we came in with, but at least Cortez seemed to think we'd provided some valuable information. The thanked us and we exchanged contact info since we'd be leaving Viridian soon.

Before we exited the station she stopped us one more time. She paused, apparently considering if it was wise to tell us at all. "Now I don't know if there's anything to it," she said, "but if you see that Ninetales again, don't touch it."

We asked her why, but she made up some incoherent excuse about police procedure not allowing her to say anything more, so we went back to Sarah's, perhaps less at ease than when we'd arrived.


	14. Transport Phenomena

After leaving Viridian we stopped briefly in Sinopia and saw the construction site where they were just beginning to lay the foundation for the epic Sinopia-Fushia bridge. We stayed a couple nights in Celadon to visit the clubs. When we boarded the bus to Saffron, Sarah and I had massive hangovers, and Faraday and Emmy sported obnoxious amounts of smeared makeup, but we made it through alive.

Saffron was intimidating. Or at least it would be for someone... not as resilient as me. We arrived at night and my eyes burned from the neon spectral lines. Signs flashed and shifted, shouting their unsavory suggestions to wide eyed spectators.

Sarah pointed one out to me. It displayed a boy, far too pretty for the fight clubs, next to a smirking Charmeleon and adorned with the text 'Do you want to be the very best?' With a smaller 'Become a Trainer today' below.

Sarah winked at me. "One day I'm going to be that sexy."

I laughed. "Is that what they mean by the very best?"

Street vendors accosted us. Overly friendly pedestrians asked to pet Faraday and Emmy. The truthseekers offered us discounted rates; they claimed to have the psychic ability to tell when people are lying.

By the time we arrived at the apartment we were too exausted to do much of anything. The rest of our belongings hadn't arrived yet so we borrowed a few blankets and pillows from the landlord and layed out on the living room floor.

The walls were bare, we owned no furniture, the carpet wasn't as soft as I'd hoped, and the blankets we borrowed smelled faintly of smoke, but as I drifted off to sleep I pulled Faraday close to my chest and watched through heavy eyelids the way that Sarah's hair fluttered every time she exhaled while Emmy breathed in sync. In that haze of sleepy logic I thought I might be able to make this strange new place my home.

* * *

"Ohhhhh!"

I walked into the office adjacent to my assigned lab just as the two guys sitting there erupted into a cheer. They had lowered the projector screen and were watching a recording of a match between members of the Saffron Fight Club.

"Mankey and Raichu?" I said as the camera cut from the violently convulsing Mankey to a smirking Raichu. It swayed its lightingbolt tail as if taunting its opponent to get back up.

"That's not any Raichu," the guy on the left said to me. "That's Lucy King's Raichu and this is the final round knockout from last semester's Saffron Fight Club championship tournament."

I shrugged. I'd heard Lucy King was a major badass, but to be honest it seemed a girl like her fighting in a bikini top and those knee-high boots and that single silver braid in her hair was just looking for attention. "Sounds exciting I guess," I said.

The guy on the left stood up and extended his hand. "Hi, I'm Ahmad and that's Isaiah." He pointed to the other guy who waved at me and quickly returned to watching the screen. "You must be Liz, right?"

I nodded and shook Ahmad's hand.

Ahmad gestured to one of the chairs. "Take a seat, we're waiting on this one other guy we work with then we can get started on orientation, or whatever the hell it is we're supposed to do with you today."

So the three of us watched the final moments of the fight. Mankey tried to stand again but eventually collapsed at the sight of spurious electric discharges at the tip of Raichu's tail. The fight was called to an end. The crowd went wild.

A boy with long black hair rushed onto the field to tend to Mankey.

"He looks really young," I said.

Ahmad nodded. "That's Kiyo. Youngest kid to ever even enter a fight club tournament and he made it to the finals. You never heard of him?"

I shook my head.

"Shit, he was underdog of the century. People wanted him to win so bad but I was like there's no way anyone's gonna beat Lucy. That Raichu is unstoppable."

The door behind us opened and to my surprise I recognized that face.

He furrowed his brow for a moment. "Liz?"

I stood up slowly. "Kurt?"

He smiled in recognition, and held his arms out wide for a hug. "Liz!"

I narrowed my eyes at him an instead only offered to shake his hand. "Hey... what are you doing here?"

"Working on the distortion generators."

Questions flooded my mind. Well not questions, mostly one in particular. How could it be that just before leaving Cinnabar I'd been kidnapped by a deranged man who knew I poisoned Kurt, and just as I arrived in Saffron I met Kurt for the first time in years. It was clearly more than coincidence but I didn't ask him about it that moment.

Instead I went through the motions. They introduced themselves and detailed their lab duties. They said we'd be working on optimizing a set of distortion generators for anisotropic spatial compression tests. They showed me the hardware. We went out for beer and wings. We laughed and charged our tab to the company, but I didn't forget that David knew I poisoned Kurt.

* * *

"Stop right where you are!" Sarah screamed at me just as I entered the apartment after my first day at work.

I froze before even getting fully through the doorway. "Why? What's wrong?" The front door was at the end of a short hallway so I couldn't see what was happening in the living room until Sarah came around the corner with a blindfold.

"Put it on."

I rolled my eyes and she put it on me anyway.

"I'm gonna trip on something."

She shushed me and moved me into position.

I smelled something burnt. When she removed the blindfold and yelled "Surprise!" I saw a large overturned cardboard box in the middle of the floor covered in a makeshift tablecloth. On top were two plates of lightly blackened lasagna, burnt garlic bread, salad, a bottle of wine and two glasses.

I smiled. "I don't think it's burnt enough."

Sarah nodded in agreement. "I know. I don't think that box is gonna hold up either. If it collapses mid dinner then you gotta clean it up because I cooked. But anyway..." she looked back at me, "I left Faraday and Emmy overnight at the daycare just for tonight so we can have an inaugural dinner without them clawing for bites. You hungry?"

Truthfully I'd gone a little overboard eating with the guys at work; I mean wouldn't anyone if the company pays? But hey, she cooked. "Yeah," I said. "I could definitely eat. At least the parts that aren't black."

Sarah chuckled so we both sat down, poured ourselves some wine, and jumped when the box collapsed in on itself.

We cursed the gods at the pathetic structural integrity of cardboard.

* * *

"I think this box is yours." Sarah handed me one of the smaller ones.

After cleaning up the mess from dinner we began unpacking.

"So anyway," Sarah continued, "the daycare is always open and the woman who runs it is really nice and I think I can get you a company pass. Technically its supposed to be for spouses or family members of employees but I think they don't mind bending the policy."

I started emptying the miscellaneous items in my box. "Sounds cool," I said. "What kind of mons do the others in your program have?"

"Uh, mostly the small and cute kind. I remember there was a Poliwag, Bellsprout, Doduo, Slowpoke, Rattata, oh and a Meowth. And the trainers..." she paused to smirk. "Trainer... it sounds so tame. Most of the people there referred to themselves as fighters but I guess Aura really wants to make 'Trainer' the official term. Anyway, most of the trainers have some experience with the fight clubs, but they didn't seem all that tough. Me and Emmy could take 'em."

That's when I noticed the phone in my box. I think Sarah was waiting for me to say something witty about her and Emmy because she asked what I was looking at and walked over to my side of the room after I remained silent.

It was the phone that John and I found in the Cinnabar forest before we entered the time dilation spatial distortion. "Weird." I powered it up and saw the Nidoking article from 'Dangerous Mons and Where to Find Them' before returning to the home screen.

"That yours?" Sarah asked.

"No, John found it in the forest. I thought he kept it." I opened the photo app and found a selfie of a redhead woman at the beach. She looked strangely familiar.

Sarah pointed. "Hey, isn't that..." She shook her head. "She looks familiar."

And a thought hit me. I opened up a search for recent news headlines, found a picture of the missing redhead girl Karen, and was thoroughly confused.

Sarah grunted a puzzled "Huh..." and then flipped back to the selfie. "That is uncanny. Maybe they're related?"

So I navigated to the device information panel and listed under 'owner' was the name Karen Darville.

"Wait, go back to the article," Sarah said.

And right there in the picture caption read 'Eleven year old Karen Darville, pictured here, was reported missing from her home in Viridian City.'

Sarah and I both went silent at that moment. We were just beginning to realize the depth of the Diglett hole we'd stumbled upon, because although an eleven year old Karen Darville went missing, the woman in that selfie could easily be in her twenties. I would have disregarded the first thought that entered my head as outlandish if only it weren't for the fact that I already had firsthand experience in the ability of a spatial distortion to drastically alter the passage of time.

"You don't think..." I started to say to Sarah.

She grimaced and shook her head. "That's not the same person. It's not possible. You and John experienced a slow down, not a speed up."

I shrugged and nodded in agreement even though I didn't fully agree. If time could slow inside a distortion, why not speed up? "Yeah, you're probably right. Must be her mother or older sister or something."

But Sarah was already on to the next consideration. "We should tell someone about this, right?"

I didn't say anything. I just kept swiping back and forth between those two pictures, trying to convince myself that these were in fact two different people, but when I saw that the timestamp of the selfie on the beach was three days after Karen was reported missing, the list of reasonable explanations grew short and discomforting.

"Yeah, I probably should. I'll go to the station tomorrow after work," I told her. "They'll probably want to talk with John too."


	15. Negative Feedback

Back in school I knew a girl named Stacy. She was chubby and ran her mouth when she was angry so she didn't have many friends, but I kind of liked her. Sometimes when we both hated the world we'd sit out on one of the school patios after class and curse at anyone audacious enough to walk too close in our direction. But I didn't talk with her much more than that.

One day we had a bring your mon to school day, and not too many people were rich enough to own one of the little monsters at the time or patient enough to go through all the safety checks, but Stacy brought in her Bulbasaur. She was pretty happy that day. People in our class all wanted to play with Bulbasaur and told Stacy how awesome it must be for her to have her own mon, so she smiled and acted like everyone we knew was her friend.

But after school when most people had left for the day, Stacy had yet to be picked up and Heather spotted us from across the patio.

Heather was an awful human being.

I didn't fully appreciate it at the time but her father was a manipulative city council member. He once ran for mayor on a 'law and order' platform aimed at placing the blame for a recent uptick in crime rates on increased immigration of Sevii island natives. His speeches always ended on some variant of "don't let an eroding shoreline erode our values."

He wasn't elected mayor but he was still a racist asshole, I could appreciate that much. So when Heather approached that Bulbasaur and its Sevii island owner I prepared for trouble.

"Hey Stacy, your Bulbasaur is so adorable." Two other girls at Heather's side nodded in affirmation and offered similarly false praises. I can't remember their names.

"He's so funny," generic bitch #1 said to Stacy, "I loved how he was squirming in class like a little wild animal."

Stacy looked up at them. "Thanks."

Heather tilted her head to the side a bit. "How can you afford to keep him? I thought your family was poor?"

"No, not really." I could see Stacy slipping through her cloud and heading back to earth. "I don't know why people say that. We're not rich but we're not poor either."

"Does he do any tricks?" generic bitch #2 asked. Stacy shook her head so #2 followed up with, "Why not? Do you not know how to train him? I hear it can be hard."

Heather silenced #2 with a wave of her hand. "Don't bother her with that." She turned back to Stacy. "But I think some training is important, right? At least enough so they don't run away? I've heard stories of mons running away from home because they hate their owners."

I could tell even Bulbasaur was uncomfortable at this point so before they could go any further I stood up and approached Heather. "Give it a rest. This adorable little guy loves Stacy, he's not running anywhere."

Heather gave me that narrow eyed head recoil. "What are you talking about? I wasn't accusing Stacy of anything, I just heard about that story on the news." She looked back at Stacy. "Why are you hanging out with this one?" She nodded to me. "Even you deserve better than her company."

"What do you mean 'even me'?" Stacy said.

"Come on Heather," I said, "we can bitch at each other tomorrow, just leave us alone today." I very gently nudged her shoulder.

"Don't touch me you freak!"

"Yeah, get your hands off her," #1 agreed.

"Oh fuck off #1, Heather can fight her own battles." Again, I'm sure I yelled her actual name at that point, I just can't remember it now.

So Heather put her hands on her hips and shifted her weight to face me head on. "Look Liz, I know some people like to turn every little perceived insult into a fight, but some of us are more civilized than that."

I don't know if I just finally had enough of her bullshit, or if I secretly wanted to be a hero for Stacy, or if I really was just some uncivilized criminal but I clenched my hand into a fist.

I remember unclenching it mid swing. That detail sticks out in particular. I figured a punch would be too aggressive, too masculine, likely to land me in more trouble if the teachers ever found out about it. So I slapped her across the face instead.

Heather recoiled and the two at her side looked at me wide-eyed and speechless.

"Well it's a fight now! What you gonna do about it miss crown jewel of civilization?"

But they just cursed at me and walked away.

Stacy wasn't particularly pleased. She grunted something about not needing to be defended before walking away with Bulbasaur.

My satisfaction didn't last long either; the next day I learned of the aftermath. Stacy's Bulbasaur was taken into custody by animal control. Both Heather and her two henchmen had the balls to actually whip themselves and then go to a teacher with fresh bruises and claim that Stacy's Bulbasaur had attacked them after school. They said they were just complimenting Stacy when I came along to harass them, and when they tried to calm me down I ordered the mon to unleash a Vine Whip.

Of course they believed Heather. She had strength in numbers and I was the wild tempered genetic experiment gone wrong. Stacy screamed at me the next time she saw me until she collapsed into tears on the ground. There was a crowd of kids surrounding us. It only made the teasing worse.

And even though Heather would eventually feel my revenge for what she did, I still regret not punching her.

* * *

When I exited the Silph Co building at the end of the day I stood motionless at the side of the street and that was the story that came to mind.

I slung my bag from over my shoulder and pulled out the phone. I knew I was supposed to take it to the police. The station was a short walk away but I just stood there. I would be a suspect.

Why hold onto the phone for such a long time? Your friend John had suspicions that the phone was connected to Karen so why wait until moving to Saffron to check it? You have no alibi for the night Karen went missing because you were missing yourself. Sure you can call John an alibi, but some might call him an accomplice. A jury might not believe that crazy spatial distortion story. Not even sure if I believe it. Your history isn't exactly glowing; the record's filled with delinquent activity all throughout your schooling. Plus I hear you've made a name for yourself in Cinnabar. Our officer in Viridian tells us that you had an encounter with a man by the name of Linus, do you know him from anywhere else? Some of your friends tell us that you've had some psychotic incidents, moments of time where your memory goes blank. Is it true that you poisoned a boy when you were younger?

I shook my head clear. I wasn't going to be one of those characters you read about who got it in their head that somehow withholding information from the police was a better idea than seeking out their help. Go to the police! Just fucking go to the police! I smiled, it was stupid really. They never did and that's just poor story telling.

I started walking toward the station. I was innocent and freely offering them information. Yeah I would be a subject but if I cooperated they wouldn't find anything. They couldn't find anything. There was nothing to be found. And the phone itself had to be one spectacular piece of hard evidence. Who was the older woman in that picture? A kidnapping by a relative was far more likely than by some unrelated Cinnabar island girl across the ocean.

But still, it was a little unnerving. At the end of the block I decided to pick up Faraday from the day care first. It wasn't too much out of the way. Plus how could they accuse me of being a bad guy in front of Faraday's dumb little face? Even cops have soft spots.

Sarah and Emmy were away at some Aura promotional event at a park in southwest Saffron so I didn't meet them at the daycare, but I picked up Faraday and continued toward the station. He was walking on two feet, or at least he was trying to. Some of the other mons had been taught how to walk upright and apparently Faraday had caught on. He could walk a few steps before loosing his balance and falling forward on all fours.

I was going to tease him about it when a massive thunderbolt struck the upcoming intersection. A small explosion burst the hood of a parked car. I heard screams and saw bellowing smoke. I jogged toward it when a woman ran around the corner, Raichu in tow.

She turned her head in my direction, but not fast enough to avoid colliding into me. It was Lucy King. She stepped back in shock, her eyes were red, smeared tears covered her face. "Sorry, I didn't see you." She kept running, and Raichu followed after shooting me the meanest glare I'd ever seen from his species.

Faraday and I stumbled around the corner and saw two men laying in the street next to the smoking car, screaming in agony. Their muscles twitched, limbs writhed on the asphalt, unsure whether they wanted to push away from the ground or lay still until the pain passed. An older couple hurried from down the street to check on them. They glanced up at me for a moment before kneeling down to ask the men if they needed help.

We were only a short walk away from the station so naturally two officers arrived on scene in what seemed like mere seconds, certainly no more than a few minutes. That made it all the more surprising when the older woman witness pointed toward me and said, "that girl was fighting with these men and then she ordered her Pikachu to attack them."

My heart seized, its beating turned to the pounding of pistons and every background process running in the recesses of my mind were killed to allocate memory needed to reconstruct the timeline of the last minute.

There was a fight, that much was true. Lucy King had reason to order her Raichu to rain lighting from the sky and run before the aftershock could catch her. I only glanced her for a few brief moments but there was enough ambiguity. We had similar body types, wore our hair the same way that day, even had similar shaded maroon sweatjackets. I wore a plain black shirt and hers bore the symbol of some overplayed J-pop band (seriously, sometimes Johto culture confused me), but that detail was small enough to be overlooked in the moments after an attack. But mistaking my little Faraday for a Raichu? That stretches the imagination.

It was all a harmless misunderstanding, easily sorted out, but my mind was ripped from the past and thrust into the future to when a bulky detective sits down across from me in a dark interrogation room, places Karen Darville's phone down in front of me and asks where I got it. "I swear officer, I was just about to turn it in when you arrested me."

So I picked up Faraday and slowly backed away from the intersection. As soon as both officers momentarily took their eyes off me I ran.

The Silph Co basement had a bar. If you go past the front entrance to the right side of the building there's a door that leads to a stairway directly down to the bar. It had tinted glass to keep stray light from ruining the mood and magnetic key card scan for employees only. At this time of the day all external doors were locked to the public so I knew that had to be my best shot.

One of the officers yelled at me to stop. He got on the radio to call for backup and I heard sirens wail in the distance. I turned back for a split second. He was fit but I was faster.

The city layout projected on the walls of my mind. Assuming I could keep the current distance between me and my pursuing officer by the time I reached the Silph Co building I had to be sure he couldn't see me slip inside. The tinted door was fairly close to the intersection, but that particular intersection was small enough that the angle of visibility from a block back should be negligible.

As I struggled to keep Faraday from falling out of my arms as I ran, I dug my key card out of my pocket so that as soon as I reached the intersection I headed for the door. Swipe, enter, close, walk down the stairs.

I was sweating and panting like a Growlithe after battle so I found an empty seat at the bar and sat down. It was pretty empty, a couple of groups of coworkers sat at tables and another man sat at the bar a few seats away from me. He watched a fight on the overhead screen. "Can't let him use that agility like that. You gotta attack now."

Faraday leapt onto the seat next to me. "Pika?" He nervously glanced between me and the stairway.

"Come on, you've got the type advantage so use it." The man at the bar threw up a hand in exasperation.

The bartender walked over to him. "Here's your onion rings."

The man glanced down then up at the screen, then down again. "No it's fine. Fight's good as over." He paid and then walked away without touching the food.

The bartender watched him leave and then eyed me. "Onion rings? They're already paid for."

Still out of breath I only nodded. He slid them toward me and I just started eating out of pure stress.

* * *

After watching fights in the bar for about an hour I took a cab home.

Sarah greeted me from the empty front room floor. "Hey there beautiful." She winked then returned her eyes to her phone.

"Huh?" Faraday jumped out of my arms to go play with Emmy in the kitchen.

"Your hair, your clothes, that expression," Sarah said. "You lose to a Squirtle again?"

I finally cracked a smile. "Never should have told you that story."

"The cops rough you up?"

"Ha, uh..."

"You didn't see them today, huh?"

I sighed and prepared to recount my epic tale. "It was just an unfortunate coincidence. There was... I ran into... I didn't just freak out about it, okay?"

Sarah chuckled. "It's fine, I get it."

"What, suddenly you're not gonna give me shit about it?"

"No, it's just I was thinking about it more last night and I really don't know what you experienced in the jungle. I don't know, maybe you want to call John first or whatever else. I'm just saying it's your business. You'll turn it over eventually, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I'll get to it soon."

She looked at her phone again and winced. "Good, because now I need your help."

I took a seat next to her on the floor. She turned her head and her expression turned deadly serious. "I got into some trouble today and I need your help."


End file.
